Throughout its standoff with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), Chinese officials sought to downplay the severity of the crisis, emphasising Beijing's intent to preserve border stability and prevent the standoff from harming other areas of its bilateral relationship with India, the Pentagon said in a report on Tuesday.
Minister of State for Home Mullappally Ramachandran said there were 228 cases of transgression of the Indo-China border by the People's Liberation Army in 2010, 213 cases in 2011, and 64 cases till April 2012
England's exhilarating run chase to battle back into the Ashes series was even too much for captain Ben Stokes!
Singh said a meeting between senior Indian and Chinese military leaders has been scheduled for June 6 even as he asserted that India is not going to back off from its position. Asked about the current situation in sensitive areas in eastern Ladakh, he said Chinese have come up to what they claim is their territory while Indians believed it is theirs.
'Unless India ups the ante, Beijing will continue to believe its transgressions are cost free and will feel encouraged to do more of the same.'
The defence ministry on Thursday accorded its approval to procure 30 MQ-9B Predator drones from the US to crank up the surveillance apparatus of the armed forces, especially along the frontier with China, people familiar with the development said.
Last year, China held a meeting with some South Asian countries on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation without the participation of India.
Claiming that its troops had 'never crossed' the Line of Actual Control with India, China on Tuesday said it always respected bilateral agreements on maintaining peace and tranquillity in border areas. "China's border personnel have been respecting the two agreements made between the two countries to maintain peace and tranquillity in border areas and have never crossed the LAC," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media briefing in Beijing.
Indian Army has deployed Pinaka and Smerch Multiple Rocket Launcher Systems (MRLS) at forward position near the China border to counter any threat arising across on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
'We can expect heightened belligerence from China.'
There was no official word on the outcome of the talks.
Indian and Chinese troops had come face to face in Chumar area of Ladakh in July when the latter transgressed into Indian territory along the Line of Actual Control. Army sources said after the two sides came face to face in Chumar -- which is northeast of Leh in Jammu and Kashmir -- they both showed banners as per the agreed drills and returned to their respective positions peacefully.
Asked about the continued tensions along the border and whether the PLA troops action was anyway related to the disagreements with the Indian government's plan to lure business out of China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said both the countries were in diplomatic contact over the face-off between their troops.
The army said senior commanders of the Indian and Chinese military reviewed the progress on implementation of the first phase of disengagement and discussed further steps to ensure complete withdrawal of troops in the region.
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.
'When we want to, we will be able to breach it, go across and strike when we need. This was the message we wanted to convey and we did'
The military standoff with China has been going on for over two years now when the Chinese side attempted to change the status quo unilaterally by moving troops in large numbers against Indian positions.
It has been argued that India should have held back on disengagement from the Kailash Range, using that as a trump card to force Chinese concessions in areas such as Depsang, where they hold the advantage.
India on Thursday strongly rejected China renaming 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh and asserted that the state has 'always been' and will 'always be' an integral part of India and that assigning 'invented' names does not alter this fact.
In a boost for the country's surveillance capabilities to monitor activities of both military warships and merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the 'Sindhu Netra' satellite developed by a team of young scientists from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was successfully deployed in space on Sunday.
"Against such background, the words and deeds of relevant important military and government officials and military deployments should be conducive to deescalating and cooling down the situation, and to enhancing mutual trust, rather than the opposite", the spokesman said.
The officials said the focus of the talks was on 'full and enduring restoration of peace and tranquillity' along the border and also better coordination to ensure avoidance of such incidents in future.
Both countries have reached a mutual agreement for disengagement of troops from the most contentious area of North and South Pangong Lake.
'Chinese soldiers don't have much experience of fighting in these kinds of areas and operating in this kind of terrain'
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.
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.
He said if the Chinese military maintains the deployment through the second winter, it may lead to an LoC-like situation (Line of Control) though not an active LoC as is there on the western front with Pakistan.
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.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury aid that India must tackle Chinese aggression using all necessary means.
Top commanders of the Army on Thursday carried out a comprehensive review of India's overall security challenges including in eastern Ladakh as well as other sensitive areas along the Line of Actual Control with China on the first day of a two-day conference, people familiar with the development said.
After remaining peaceful for most of the year, Chinese troops entered Indian territory in the fag end of 2010 along the Line of Actual Control in south-eastern Ladakh region and threatened a contractor and his team to halt work on constructing a 'passenger shed'.
The incident had taken place at a time when the Indian Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar, was in Moscow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, where he met his Chinese counterpart to address the border issues.
"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.
The marathon fourth round of Lt Gen-level talks also focussed on steps for pulling back large number of troops and weapons from rear bases along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
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.
The Defence Ministry said his tenure will be remembered for the 'resolute reply' to the Northern adversary in Eastern Ladakh and for a determined push towards self-reliance in defence besides embracing niche and disruptive technologies to fight future wars.
"We hope the Indian side will move towards China and through concrete actions implement the consensus and continue the close communication through military and diplomatic channels to jointly push for the de-escalation on the border region," Zhao said.
Chinese intrusions have been noticed in the past "two years" along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
Indian Army officers are convinced China is maintaining the pretence of dialogue and negotiations in order to create the opportunity to occupy more Indian territory. Senior Indian planners apprehend this might be a Chinese ploy to divert attention from Depsang, in Northern Ladakh, which might be China's actual target.
