With reports suggesting that China was building over two dozen new airstrips along the Line of Actual Control, the government on Tuesday said there was no need to be 'unnecessarily' worried as India was adequately strengthening itself. "I don't think we need to be unnecessarily alarmed. As a regional power, they (China) will strengthen their infrastructure. They will procure their arms and we are doing what we have to do for strengthening our line," said a Cabinet minister.
'Our villagers used to go up to Finger 4 and Finger 6, but today the Chinese are there.' 'Since April 2020, Chinese troops have blocked Indian troops from reaching at least ten patrolling points running from the Depsang plains in the north to Pangong Tso lake in the south.'
"Government is aware that China is developing infrastructure in border regions opposite India in the Tibet and Xinjiang autonomous regions," Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur told Rajya Sabha.
China on Monday criticised Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, stating that it violated Chinese sovereignty over the area, a claim outrightly dismissed by India.
India recently outflanked China by taking control of strategic height near Pangong lake's southern bank.
India and China on Friday agreed to hold the next round of military talks at an early date to achieve the objective of complete disengagement in remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh amid fresh sparring between the two sides on the prolonged Line of Actual Control (LAC) standoff.
A joint statement released on Thursday said both sides exchanged views in an 'open and constructive' manner to resolve the 'relevant issues' and that it was agreed to maintain 'security and stability' on the ground in the region.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday took a strong stance on the Indo-China border issue by saying that any unilateral attempt to change the Line of Actual Control (LAC) will not be 'countenanced' by India.
Two days ago, the Chinese foreign ministry following a meeting between NSA Ajit Doval and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Johannesburg claimed that Xi and Modi had reached an 'important consensus' on stabilising bilateral ties at the interaction on the margins of the G20 Summit last November.
India has not yet received any confirmation on Chinese President Xi Jinping's in-person participation at the upcoming G20 summit, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday amid reports that he is likely skip the conclave.
Indigenous extremist outfits like Indian Mujahideen and the Student Islamic Movement of India could help Pak terror groups in retaliatory terror strikes in India in the wake of Afzal Guru's hanging, says Col R Hariharan, in an updated summary of comments made by him in a TV discussion
'We can expect heightened belligerence from China.'
The recent reports of incursions and firing along the India-China border has not deterred spirited tourists who have begun thronging the Buddhist monastry town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, over which China stakes claim.
'China seems more intent on creating a new world order rather than shaping the existing one.' 'India is of course, at this moment in time, aligned with the West-led order because of China's full-spectrum aggressive behaviour towards India.'
Jaishankar, who arrived in Santo Domingo on his first official visit to the Dominican Republic, also said that India has seen a dramatic expansion in connectivity, contacts, and cooperation across the region.
India and Pakistan have agreed to strictly observe all agreements on ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and other sectors, according to a joint statement on Thursday.
The disengagement process from both the north and south banks of Pangong Lake was completed by the two nations and further disengagement is underway at other friction points.
Last year, China held a meeting with some South Asian countries on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation without the participation of India.
In a sudden development, India and China pulled back their troops from the stand off point at Daulat Beg Oldi sector in Ladakh, where the Chinese forces had intruded nearly three weeks back, official sources said on Sunday night.
India and China are likely to hold another round of diplomatic talks this week on eastern Ladakh with a focus on moving forward in disengagement of troops in the remaining friction points, people familiar with the development said on Tuesday.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat on Wednesday asserted that any possible terrorist activity flowing out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and finding its way into India will be firmly dealt with, and suggested that the Quad nations should boost cooperation in the global war on terrorism.
The annual threat assessment of the US Intelligence Community released by the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) also said that the 'expanded military posture by both India and China along the disputed border elevates the risk of armed confrontation between two nuclear powers that might involve direct threats to US persons and interests and calls for US intervention'.
Pakistan may want to undertake a 'false flag' operation in J&K to divert attention from the situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but infiltrating one SSG battalion into J&K and having two SSG battalions waiting to follow suit means war, which Pakistan cannot afford in its current economic crisis, notes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Corps Commander-level meeting between armies of India and China was held in Chushul on Tuesday, to resolve the ongoing dispute over Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh area, said Indian Army Sources.
The relations between India and China cannot be normal if peace and tranquillity in border areas are disturbed, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday.
"There are individual areas where we think there are activities and infrastructure development. We have ways of dealing with this and it has always been successful," Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told media persons during a briefing on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's maiden visit to Beijing beginning Sunday.
Asked for his reaction to the allegation of the PLA abducting Taron, the spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing said, "I don't know the situation."
According to estimates, both India and China have deployed more than 50,000 troops in the Eastern Ladakh sector opposite each other despite the limited disengagement in the Pangong lake sector by both sides earlier this year.
'We think we are ready to have a practical, rational, logical kind of discussion whereas on the other side there is this kind of defensiveness,'says a senior Indian diplomat.
India and China on Friday are holding another round of high-level military dialogue to resolve the 22-month-long standoff in some friction points in eastern Ladakh, two months after the last round of such talks failed to yield any significant outcome.
The 11th round of the Corps Commander-level talks began at around 10.30 am at the Chushul border point on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, they said.
Former Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya has opined that cutting trade with Beijing at this juncture would amount to sacrificing India's potential economic growth.
The two militaries are set to hold extensive talks on finalising modalities for restoring normalcy and bringing back peace and tranquillity in the region after the verification of the disengagement exercise is completed.
When asked for an update on Tuesday's military-level talks, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing in Beijing that both sides reached progress for promoting further disengagement of the border troops at the Western Sector.
India is likely to convey to Russia that its troops would not be participating in the multinational military exercise Kavkaz-2020 where Chinese and Pakistani troops are also going to be there.
'It is a breathtaking journey towards the Tibet border, especially since the Border Road Organisation has accomplished a fabulous feat in black-topping the road till the border.' 'One is left with a salute for the dauntless Indian soldiers who spend the winter in these majestic, though inhospitable areas (we were told that the temperature comes down to minus 40 in winter),' recounts Claude Arpi.
The Blinken visit indicated that the Biden administration is still somewhat tentative about the specifics of its relations with India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who has served multiple stints at India's embassy in Washington, DC.
The two sides held diplomatic talks through video conference on the border standoff in midst of fresh details emerging that China has strengthened its position in several areas in eastern Ladakh including Galwan Valley where a violent clash on June 15 left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
India will establish a joint mechanism with China in the next few months to resolve border issues while taking steps to modernise its military infrastructure in the face of Beijing "aggressively" shoring up its defence set up along the Line of Actual Control, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Tuesday.
Singh said the Modi government has changed the approach adopted by previous governments that the border areas are buffer zones between the plains and the potential adversary.
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