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Minnie Chan

China’s envoy to India has warned that a military stand-off along a contested part of the border in the Himalayas was the most serious confrontation between the two nations in more than 30 years.
Ambassador Luo Zhaohui told media in New Delhi that the Chinese people were deeply angry over the “occupation” by Indian troops of its sovereign territory but said the showdown should be resolved through diplomatic means.
 
Each side has about 3,000 soldiers facing off across a remote plateau in the pocket of land where Tibet meets Sikkim and Bhutan, Indian media reported citing army sources.


Tensions along parts of the 3,500km frontier that China and India share have simmered ever since the two sides fought a brief but bloody war in 1962.
What’s behind the latest China-India border dispute?
The Donglang region has remained a hot spot, under the control of China but keenly watched by New Delhi given its proximity to the narrow strip of territory that connects India’s northeast with the rest of the country. 
Last month China began building a road on territory also claimed by Bhutan, a move seen as upsetting the status quo. Although China and Bhutan have spent decades negotiating the precise border without serious incident, the tiny Himalayan kingdom sought help this time from its long-time ally, India, which sent troops onto the plateau.
China says India violates 1890 agreement in border stand-off
Speaking to the Press Trust of India on Tuesday, Luo said the current confrontation was sparked after Indian troops crossed into the region.
“The Chinese people are very angry as India is occupying Chinese territory. The Chinese government is facing great pressure,” Luo said, according to a statement posted on the website of the Chinese embassy on Wednesday. Luo said Beijing hoped the stand-off could be solved by diplomatic negotiations, but comments by Indian officials had left Beijing suspicious.
“Before the stand-off, an Indian military leader said they are ready for the ‘2.5 front war’, and after that, another leader claimed ‘today’s India is not the India of 1962’. What messages are they sending to China?” the statement quoted him as saying.

Last month Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said the nation was “fully ready for a two and a half front war”, without naming China or Pakistan, hinting New Delhi was capable of solving both internal and external challenges to its sovereignty.
The Chinese military announced earlier the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was testing a new lightweight tank designed for mountain terrain in the Himalayan region.
The 35-tonne tank is said to be more advanced than the PLA’s second-generation main battle tank, the T-96A, as well as the Indian military’s 90S tank.
The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday said India must pull back its troops “as soon as possible” as a precondition to demonstrate “sincerity” for talks on resolving the border row, spokesman Geng Shuang said.
China accuses Indian border guards of crossing into its territory
His comments came after weeks of sabre-rattling in New Delhi and Beijing, as officials from both sides talk up a potential clash even bloodier than their 1962 war that left thousands dead.
After Chinese officials said India should learn “historic lessons” from its humiliating defeat in the 1962 war, Indian Defence Minister Arun Jaitley shot back by saying that “India in 2017 is different from India in 1962,” in a reference to its improved military strength.

Rajeswari Rajagopalan, a defence analyst from the Observer Research Foundation think tank in New Delhi, said the stand-off was dangerous and unintended clashes “could spiral into a war”.
“There is suspicion in Delhi that this was a deliberate provocation by China. This incident is being seen as a way to test India’s resolve to defend Bhutan’s security,” she said. “How India handles this incident is important because it could send a message to many small countries in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Why it’s time the Indian media ended its war on China
Meanwhile, Chinese state media suggested that some in the Indian military were seeking payback for the 1962 war.
“Perhaps its defeat in that war was too humiliating for some in the Indian military and that is why they are talking belligerently this time,” China Daily said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


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Vehicles travel along a mountain road near the Nathu La Pass, a trading post in the Himalayas between India and China in the state of Sikkim. Photo: Bloomberg

(FILES) This file photo taken on July 10, 2008 shows a Chinese soldier (L) next to an Indian soldier at the Nathu La border crossing between India and China in India's northeastern Sikkim state. China's ambassador said July 4, 2017 that the withdrawal of Indian troops from a disputed territory is a "precondition" for peace, in an apparent escalation of a border row between the two Asian powers that has drawn in tiny Bhutan. Indian and Chinese troops are reportedly facing off on a section of land high in the Himalayas near what is known as the trijunction, where Tibet, India and Bhutan meet. / AFP PHOTO / DIPTENDU DUTTA

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Workers put up the Indian flag (L) alongside the Chinese flag on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, 22 June 2003, ahead of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's arrival. Vajpayee's visit is the first to China by an Indian premier in a decade, as the two Asian giants which account for a third of the world's population, have had unsteady relations since a bloody 1962 border war, while fifteen rounds of talks since the 1980s have failed to resolve their boundary disputes. AFP PHOTO

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Indian army soldiers patrol during an operation against suspected rebels in Turkwangam Lassipora in Shopian south of Srinagar on May 4, 2017. Thousands of soldiers and paramilitaries are engaged in a huge anti-militant operation in Indian-administered Kashmir, where armed rebels have repeatedly attacked government forces in recent weeks. Police said government forces had surrounded at least 20 villages in the drive, launched in Shopian district in the volatile south of the disputed Himalayan region. / AFP PHOTO / Tauseef MUSTAFA

FILE - In this Sunday, May 5, 2013 photo, Chinese troops hold a banner which reads: "You've crossed the border, please go back," in Ladakh, India. While the recent troop standoff in a remote Himalayan desert spotlights a long-running border dispute between China and India, the two emerging giants are engaged in a rivalry for global influence that spreads much farther afield. (AP Photo/File) INDIA OUT

(141103) -- ATTARI-WAGAH BORDER, Nov. 3, 2014 (Xinhua) -- Indian Border Security Force (BSF) troopers patrol at the international border with Pakistan, around 30 kms from Amritsar, India, on Nov. 3, 2014. BSF troopers were put on high alert Sunday evening along the India- Pakistan international border after a massive blast left over 55 people dead and over 118 others injured at Wagah border check point in Pakistan, said local media. (Xinhua/Stringer) ****Authorized by ytfs****

A Chinese soldier gestures beside an Indian soldier on the border between the two countries in this file photo.The two sides have recently been engaged in a military stand-off sparked by a road construction project. Photo: AFP

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To go with story 'Pakistan-China-unrest-economy-port,FOCUS' by Jennie Matthew This photograph taken on February 12, 2013 shows the construction site at Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea. China's acquisition of a strategic port in Pakistan is the latest addition to its drive to secure energy and maritime routes and gives it a potential naval base in the Arabian Sea, unsettling India. AFP PHOTO/Behram BALOCH

Chinese workers pose for a picture with Pakistani soldiers at a ceremony to open a pilot trade project in Gwadar port, some 700 kms west of Karachi on November 13, 2016. Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on November 13 opened a trade route linking the southwestern post of Gwadar to the Chinese city of Kashgar as part of a joint multi-billion-dollar project to jumpstart economic growth in the South Asian country. / AFP PHOTO / AAMIR QURESHI

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A Pakistani soldier patrols at the newly built Gwadar port, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) west of Karachi, Pakistan, Tuesday, March 20, 2007. Pakistans President Gen. Pervez Musharraf inaugurated a new deep-sea Gwadar port in southwestern Pakistan and said it would help create greater prosperity in the region. The port was built with help from China and is the third along Pakistan's Arabian Sea coastline. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)

A Pakistani guard beside a ship docked at Gwadar port. Photo: AFP

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Beijing hopes stand-off can be solved by diplomacy, but comments by Indian officials ‘had made Beijing suspicious’


China-India border dispute

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