India's Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat in a file photo. File photo/ANI
By Devjyot Ghoshal | Reuters
NEW DELHI, India, 6 November 2020
India’s top military commander said on Friday a tense border standoff with Chinese forces in the western Himalayas could spark a larger conflict, even as senior commanders from both sides met near the frontline for their eighth round of talks.
Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat said the situation was tense at the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border, in eastern Ladakh, where thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a months-long confrontation.
“We will not accept any shifting of the Line of Actual Control,” Rawat said in an online address.
“In the overall security calculus, border confrontations, transgressions and unprovoked tactical military actions spiralling into a larger conflict cannot therefore be discounted,” he said.
Brutal hand-to-hand combat in June left 20 Indian and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers dead, escalating tensions and triggering large deployments on the remote, desolate border area.
Both sides have since attempted to ease the situation through diplomatic and military channels, but have made little headway, leaving soldiers facing-off in sub-zero temperatures in Ladakh’s snow deserts.
Senior Indian and Chinese commanders were meeting on Friday in Ladakh, the eight round of talks between the military leaderships since the crisis began, officials in New Delhi said.
The talks would likely 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.
Infantry troops, backed by artillery and armoured vehicles, are also facing off on the southern bank of the lake, where China has been pushing India to pull back, the official said.
India is an emerging global power and has aspiration to be a super power. It’s their right and they are entitled as any other nation. India has the capacity to be a super power because it has the man power, the economic power will come as most of foreign investment in China moves out and with its closer relationship with the US, it can buy the state of the art weapons from its western allies like Rafael from France.
Being a democracy, India is a stable nation unlike China which can explode into chaos like erstwhile Yugoslavia and USSR. China practises crony capitalism. So, the ruling elite and its cronies have enriched themselves but 80% of the people live under poverty line according the UN.
India’s population is young. 50% of it are between 20 to 36 years while China is an ageing nation with much fewer young people. This could explain the rape on the main land which has to be condemned but never heard of rape in Arunachal. It’s politically motivated.
Chinese claim over Tibet is untenable that’s why it needs India’s approval to prop up its baseless claim which the Indians foolishly did. So, China should forfeit any dream of retrieving Arunachal or Senkaku islands. It’s a pipe dream.
The Chinese spit, urinate and defecate like the Indians. How did the Hong Kongers reacted when thousands arrived in Hong Kong from China for shopping baby formula in 2017 when the Chinese formulas were poisoned and killed babies.
Their bad habits of urinating in public space shocked the British sanitation freak HKongers. It created bad blood between Chinese and HKongers. Tibetan saying goes: you may have eyes to look at others faults but you need a mirror to look at your own.
The caste system is evil and must be eliminated. All Indians must work to eliminate it.
The war India should fight is the war on malnutrition and to feed its poor and raise the standard of living of its people. It would help if the Indians can rid its caste culture and treat the dalits and adivasis as human beings. Land grabbing and sabre rattling won’t get India anywhere. People won’t respect India if more than half of the population defecate in the open every day. India should also fight the war on rape which is a huge source of anger in occupied South Tibet and a huge problem on the mainland. Currently India ranks lower than Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Congo, Ethiopia, Angola on global hunger index. If India wants to have any respect from the world these are the things India should focus on rather than this fetish on superpower thing. The British gifted the desi a country called India and Indians should be content of what the British bequeath them and build good relations with its neighbors. All its neighbors not just China. India should take a look in the mirror and ask why all its neighbors resents India. The predicament India is in is India’s own making. Forget about superpower. Feed your people first. The yardstick to judge a country is to see how it treats its poorest and most vulnerable population and on this front India fail miserably. India should get out of the northeast because India don’t belong there. Indians never miss a chance to lecture the Brits of their sin of colonialism yet are oblivious of the fact that they are doing the exact same thing to the northeast and Kashmir. India has been hosting the Tibetans long enough. If India care about the Tibetans it should encourage the Tibetans and the PRC to reconcile (or independence and South Tibet would be a good start) instead of trying to block it.
The geopolitical competition has begun in the Himalayas. India claims whole of POK and Gilgit Baltistan which is a self administered enclave with a population of 1.5 million. Gilgit and Baltistan was part of Tibet during the Tibetan empire linked to Western Tibet.
In the 12th-13th century it came under Islamic influence and converted to Islam but to this day they retain Tibetan language. It came under the princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1947 it came under Pakistani control when tribal militias backed by Pakistan invaded Jammu and Kashmir. But it is neither independent nor a full fledged Pakistani Province. It is claimed by both India and Pakistan.
Imran Khan has announced to annex it while Narendra Modi has also talked about “uncoiling history” with a “strategic objective”. It is six times larger than POK. It stands as the land bridge between Pakistan and occupied Tibet.
As China and India are locked in a bitter battle of attrition for geopolitical influence and strategic competition, Gilgit-Baltistan is sucked into the vortex of big power rivalry. The Chinese are eyeing Ladakh in order to claim even more territory for expansion while India is only claiming what it feels is its own territory until 1947.
India’s Ladakh is divided by the Siachen glacier from Gilgit-Baltistan. India ceased it from Pakistan in 1984 and sees it as a very strategic territory to defend Ladakh and also launch military campaigns into Gilgit-Baltistan should India decide to annex it in the future.
The Chinese incursion in to Ladakh has set off a hornets nest. The three nuclear powers are now jockeying for control of the Himalayan heights to control, expand and project their power. India will have to fight a two front war if war breaks out either with China or Pakistan.