In this 14 September 2017, file photo, a banner erected by the Indian army stands near Pangong lake near the India-China border in India's Ladakh area.
File photo/AP/Manish Swarup
By Ashok Sharma | AP
NEW DELHI, India, 31 July 2021
Top Indian and Chinese army commanders met Saturday after a gap of three months to discuss the expeditious disengagement of thousands of forces in a bid to ease the 15-month border tensions and clashes.
Indian army spokesman Col Sudhir Chamoli said the meeting started on Saturday on the Chinese side of the border in the eastern Ladakh region but gave no other details.
The meeting was expected to end later Saturday and both sides were likely to issue statements on Sunday.
The 12th round of army-level talks appears to have been pushed by a meeting of the foreign ministers of India and China in Tajikistan on 15 July. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that the military standoff was profoundly disturbing their ties. He also warned that any unilateral change in the status quo by Beijing was unacceptable.
In February, both sides pulled back front-line troops and weaponry from the Pangong Tso sector. The focus now was on disengaging troops from Hot Springs, Gogra and Depsang areas.
Both countries have stationed tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along the de facto border called the Line of Actual Control, or LAC. Last year, 20 Indian troops died in a clash with Chinese soldiers involving clubs, stones and fists in a portion of the disputed border. China said it lost four soldiers.
China’s Foreign Ministry said after the foreign ministers’ meeting that the standoff benefited neither side and that China wanted to resolve the situation through dialogue.
The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war in 1962.
There will be no peace on the Indo-Tibet border until Tibet takes its historical status as a buffer State between India and China. For centuries, India and China were separated by independent Tibet. There were officially only 27 soldiers guarding the Indo-Tibet border before the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
As soon as China occupied Tibet, it militarised Tibet with roads, infrastructure and stationing of missiles targeting India. Today, Tibet is bristling with missiles, fighter jets, bunkers, tunnels, tanks and half a million occupation forces. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway enables China to move troops and arms to the India border within 48 hours!
China is bend upon to slice away Indian territory through the salami slicing tactic which it has applied through out its history. It never keeps its promises but asks its opponents to keep theirs! Under such circumstance, the only way to deal with it is to pay them in the same coin it does to others.
The Chinese are well aware what India did to liberate Bangladesh. They were so incensed that it didn’t recognise Bangladesh even after Pakistan did! India MUST have this as its ultimate plan to secure a safe and harmonious border with Tibet. There is no other solution than REINSTATE the historical Indo-Tibet border.
The CCP is bound to fall sooner or later. It must prepare for contingency plans such as arming the Tibetans in order to regain Tibet’s independence. History is full of surprises and Tibetans are ready to fight for our country.
Tibetans have a history of martial tradition from the times of the great Emperor Songtsen Gampo who forced the Tang emperor to give his daughter Wencheng as a bond to buy peace with Tibet. It’s time Tibet revisited our ancient chivalry not because we want to but bc we need to.