China-India border fight latest in long and troubled history between the Asian giants

Name: Three Indian soldiers killed in border clash with Chinese troops
Uploaded: 2020-07-02T23:00:07.000Z
Duration: 2 min 13 s
Description: Three Indian soldiers killed in border clash with Chinese troops

With both sides accusing the other of ignoring agreements struck over past 30 years, experts say situation is complex

One problem is lack of demarcated border, just a traditional line formed gradually over thousands of years

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There have been a number of landmark agreements in the past 30 years between China and India in an effort to resolve their border dispute. Photo: AFP

Shi Jiangtao

Published: 7:00am, 3 Jul 2020Updated: 10:21pm, 3 Jul 2020

A stinging war of words between China and India following their deadliest border clash in more than 50 years has taken a new turn in recent days, with claims on both sides about the flouting of agreements signed in the past three decades.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian levelled a string of accusations against New Delhi last week, including an assertion that “the adventurous acts of the Indian army seriously violated the agreements reached between the two countries on the border issue”.

A day later, his Indian counterpart Anurag Srivastava hit back, accusing China of violating various bilateral agreements – in particular a landmark 1993 treaty – by amassing large numbers of troops along the disputed Himalayan border since early May. The issue, he claimed, was “at the heart” of the latest row.

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Three Indian soldiers killed in border clash with Chinese troops

The Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong, in an interview with Indian news agency PTI on the same day, bluntly accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of breaching both the 1993 and 1996 pacts between the two countries.

The latest arguments over differing interpretations of the previously agreed border treaties have underlined the complexity of the protracted border dispute amid deep-seated suspicion and antagonism between the world’s most populous nuclear powers, according to pundits.

Since 1993, China and India have signed at least five treaties over their unmarked border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and a few other protocols to ensure peace and tranquillity in the border areas after decades of strenuous talks which began in 1981.

“It is a fact that there is no demarcated border historically between our two countries, other than a traditional, customary line formed gradually in the past two millennia,” said Wang Dehua, an expert on India at the Shanghai Municipal Centre for International Studies.