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
“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.”
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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.
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Military and diplomatic officials on both sides have been meeting regularly to try and reduce tensions along the 3,488km (2,167-mile) boundary. Rawat’s comments came as the eighth round of such dialogue was under way in Ladakh on Friday.
The talks were likely to include discussions on a Chinese proposal to pull some troops back from a contested area on the northern bank of Pangong Tso lake, where soldiers were separated by a few hundred metres, according to an Indian official.
Rawat also warned India may have to reckon with twin conflicts, with Pakistan and China at the same time, along its western and northern borders.
“Constant friction with two of our nuclear armed neighbours with whom India has fought wars, increasingly acting in collusion poses an omnipresent danger” to regional stability, Rawat said, adding that there was “potential for escalation threatening our territorial integrity and strategic cohesion”.
Additional reporting by Reuters
