China-India border tensions may spark wider conflict, Indian defence chief warns

India and China have been caught in a tense military stand-off along their Himalayan border since May

The dispute comes as India’s 460-mile Line of Control with Pakistan has been equally active and tense

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Indian and Chinese military and diplomatic officials have been meeting to try and reduce tensions along the border. Photo: AP

Published: 9:00pm, 6 Nov 2020Updated: 9:00pm, 6 Nov 2020

India’s escalating border tensions with China could lead to a wider conflict, Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat said, adding to concerns for a nation that has been battling another neighbour to its west for decades.

“We will not accept any shifting of the Line of Actual Control,” Rawat said in his address at New Delhi’s National Defence College on Friday.

“In the overall security calculus, border confrontations, transgressions, unprovoked tactical military actions spiralling into a larger conflict therefore cannot be discounted,” he said. “The situation along Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh remains tense.”

India and China have been caught in a tense military stand-off along their Himalayan border since May.

Both sides have moved thousands of troops, tanks and missiles to the frontier, while fighter jets are on standby. Both armies are now preparing to dig in for the bitterly cold winter at the high-altitude and mostly uninhabited terrain.

The conflict comes as India’s 742-kilometre (460-mile) Line of Control with Pakistan has been equally active and tense.

Indian and Chinese soldiers have engaged in skirmishes in which shots have been fired for the first time in over four decades. Some 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a particularly violent clash along the border in June.