NEW DELHI – Indian and Chinese troops clashed along their disputed Himalayan border on Monday, according to media and military reports, while Beijing intensified pressure on its southern neighbor with new invasions in territory claimed by both sides.
Details of the latest skirmish remain murky, and Indian officials have downplayed the events. Indian media and independent military analysts said the clash took place several days ago and that soldiers were wounded on both sides, although no deaths were reported.
The Indian army has just said that a “small sight” took place last week in northern Sikkim, a mountainous Indian state bordering China.
The prospect was “resolved by local commanders according to established protocols”, according to a statement from the Indian Army, without explaining how the face occurred and whether anyone was injured.
Chinese officials were even more cramped. Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stressed at a regular scheduled news conference on Monday that the two parties were holding military talks. Hu Xijin, the editor of Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled nationalist tabloid newspaper, called the reports “fake news” and said that small frictions occur frequently.
Although details were scarce, reports of a collision showed that tensions were still simmering between the two Asian giants, who waged a war in 1962 and have since looked carefully across their unresolved border. Tensions erupted in June, when troops from both countries fought deadly along the border with the Ladakh region in northern India.
No shots were fired in that fight, stemming from a tacit notion that no side along the tense border of Himalayan may use firearms. The deaths of more than 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops have exposed the growing aggression of both countries, led by nationalist leaders, with little political incentive to return. About 100,000 troops from the Indian and Chinese armies are now staring at inhospitable mountain passes in just-zero temperatures in the Ladakh region, military experts estimate.
Since the summer, both parties have been trying to ease tensions. But in India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi disputes reports that China is far from disputed border areas.
The NDTV report of new structures built in the harsh mountainous area is difficult to confirm independently. Two Indian government officials in Arunachal said the Chinese had recently built villages in disputed areas along the border in places that previously had only a few remote military posts.
“Where the military lived, some civilians also started living there,” said DJ Borah, a senior district official in the area.
When asked about the new town, Indian Foreign Ministry officials referred back to a statement given to NDTV in which the ministry said that it was aware of the recent report and that ‘China has had such infrastructure in recent years undertook activities. ”
Leaders of India’s main opposition party, Mr. Modi criticized for keeping quiet about the matter. “China is expanding its occupation to Indian territory,” said Rahul Gandhi, the party’s leader, the Indian National Congress, said on Twitter.
Chinese officials, for their part, do not deny that there are new villages in the area. But they say the area is in China.
“The normal construction of China on its own territory is entirely a matter of sovereignty,” Hua Chunying, a spokesman for China’s foreign minister, said this month.
Local leaders in Arunachal Pradesh interviewed by The New York Times said Chinese forces were slowly but steadily cutting away small pieces of Indian territory, as was the strategy China was showing in the South China Sea and along its border with Bhutan . Military analysts call it salami cuts.
“Longju used to be our country,” said Chatung Mra, a bank manager. He used the local name for the general area where the Chinese village is now. “Our ancestors used to live there.”
“We feel very bad, but what can we do?” Ask Mr. Mra. “We can not fight with them.”
The area in question is on the foothills of the Himalayas and more than 1,500 kilometers from New Delhi, the capital. Official Indian maps showed that the Longju area lies several kilometers within India, said local leaders who visited near the disputed area. But China has effectively controlled it since 1959.
According to them, in recent years China has carried out a spate of construction projects along the border and now made areas that were previously accessible to people on the Indian side now inaccessible.
The local leaders said that the Chinese infrastructure campaign was much better than what India did, and that it was effective in taking up controversial areas in China.
“Our place used to be five to six kilometers beyond Longju,” said Tungpo Mra, a leader of the Mra, a local ethnic group. “Now everything is in China’s control.”
Taro Bamina, the general secretary of an Arunachal youth group, was particularly frustrated and helped organize a rally last week that included hundreds of protesters in Daporijo, a market town in Arunachal.
“This is our homeland,” he said. Bamina said. “We wanted to tell the government of India. “Why didn’t you take care of it?” ”
What local leaders in Arunachal report is similar to what local leaders in Ladakh reported more than 2,000 kilometers away. According to the leaders of Ladakh, China has been fueling construction projects along the border with India over the past few years, which have been zigzagged through high mountain passes and never marked. As a result, China’s troops – and civilians – could move to the border countries much faster than India.
Chinese and Indian military commanders are still holding talks along the disputed border in the Ladakh region. Meanwhile, Ladakhi herdsmen complained that they had to chase away Chinese vehicles that had bravely crossed over to India.
Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and a veteran of the Indian Army, said the latest clash in Sikkim, an area where India expected to have a strategic advantage because it have more troops, indicating that tensions would increase. as the soil thaws.
“If you look at it in the light of everything that is going on,” he said. Singh said, “it means we are looking at a very tense situation next summer.”
Steven Lee Myers reporting from Seoul, South Korea.