CHINESE troops on December 9 once again carried out an incursion across the Line of Actual Control, this time in Yangtse area of Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh, and attempted to unilaterally change the status quo. However, Indian troops resisted, leading to clashes between the soldier and causing injuries on both sides. However, the situation has since returned to normal. Subsequently, the local commander of the Army held a flag meeting with his Chinese counterpart on December 11, where the Chinese side was asked to maintain peace on the border. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the matter had been raised with the Chinese side at the diplomatic level as well.
The soldiers on the two sides are reported to have beaten each other with sticks and canes. This was the closest encounter that Indian troops and the PLA have had since the deadly Galwan incident in eastern Ladakh in June 2020 in which twenty Indian soldiers were killed and an unspecified number of their Chinese counterpart. The incident came days after China expressed objection to India-US joint military exercise at Auli in the Uttarakhand hills, claiming it was a violation of 1993 and 1996 border agreements. And it also follows the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Bali in November during which they exchanged courtesies but did not hold any substantive talks or discussions.
The two countries have already been engaged in a bitter eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation ever since the Chinese army staged incursions across the Line of Actual Control in multiple areas in April-May 2020. In September, India began disengaging from the Gogra-Hotsprings border area in Ladakh after reaching a consensus in the 16th round of India-China Corps Commander-level meeting. This had created some hope that the antagonism between the two countries would come to an end. Through sustained negotiations they finally found an amicable way out. And the situation in recent months seemed to have been improving. In October, the outgoing Chinese ambassador Sun Weidong in his farewell speech talked about ‘broad prospects’ in ties between India and China. He, however, added that both countries should refrain from interfering in the internal matters of the other, while acknowledging that it was natural for the neighbours to have differences. But with the Tawang incident, the situation seems to have gone back to square one. It has injected fresh bitterness into the bilateral ties. And if the situation continues like this, it won’t good for the region. For a peaceful neighborhood it’s important that India and China reach a modus-vivendi by resolving the issues dividing them.
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