NEW DELHI: A year after troop disengagement between India and China from the two remaining face-off sites at Depsang and Demchok in eastern Ladakh, there is as yet no actual de-escalation on the ground with the rival armies set to remain forward deployed for the sixth successive winter in the forbidding high-altitude terrain.
The military thrust amid the ongoing diplomatic détente is to manage tensions and “maintain peace and tranquillity” all along the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC), stretching from eastern Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), however, continues with its relentless infrastructure build-up along the frontier.
At the 23rd round of corps commander-level meeting at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point in eastern Ladakh on Oct 25, “both sides agreed to continue to use existing mechanisms to resolve any ground issues along the border to maintain stability”, the external affairs ministry said on Wednesday.
This was the first meeting of the “general-level mechanism” in the western sector of the LAC since the 24th round of special representatives talks between national security advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Aug this year.
The meeting between the Indian 14 Corps commander and the South Xinjiang Military District chief was held in “a friendly and cordial atmosphere”. The two sides “noted the progress” since the 22nd round between them a year ago and “shared the view that peace and tranquillity has been maintained in the border areas”, the MEA said.
The troop disengagement at Depsang and Demchok, along with “coordinated patrolling” by the rival troops there, has certainly reduced the chances of any clashes and inadvertent vertical escalation. The trust deficit, however, remains high, sources said.
De-escalation and the consequent de-induction of troops, which will require return of all additional troops to their permanent peacetime locations, and the restoration of status quo that existed before April 2020 are “still nowhere on the horizon”, the sources added.
After initially being caught off-guard, India had pumped in well over 50,000 troops into eastern Ladakh, along with heavy weapon systems like tanks, howitzers and surface-to-air missile systems, to match the PLA after it made multiple incursions into the region in April-May 2020. Similar “mirroring” of forward troop deployments took place in the eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal) and middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) sectors of the LAC as well.
“Over five years later, there have been some troop reductions, which in any case is done during the winters. But the bulk of the troops from either side remain in place. There is an uneasy calm,” a source said.
China’s continuing massive infrastructure build-up all along the LAC, which ensures it can rush additional troops and weapons to forward areas many times faster than India, remains a major concern.
Similarly, China has deployed additional fighters, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and drones at its airfields facing India like Hotan, Kashgar, Gargunsa, Shigatse, Bangda, Nyingchi, Lhunze and Hoping after upgrading them with new and extended runways, hardened shelters, fuel and ammunition storage facilities, as reported earlier by TOI.
Restoration of patrolling rights in areas where “no patrol buffer zones” were established to India’s disadvantage after previous rounds of disengagement till Sept 2022 is also yet to take place.
There was supposed to be only “a temporary moratorium” in patrolling in these buffer zones at Galwan, north bank of Pangong Tso, the Kailash Range and the larger Gogra-Hot Springs area, varying from 3-km to 10-km, which largely came up on what India considers to be its own territory.
The military thrust amid the ongoing diplomatic détente is to manage tensions and “maintain peace and tranquillity” all along the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC), stretching from eastern Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), however, continues with its relentless infrastructure build-up along the frontier.
At the 23rd round of corps commander-level meeting at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point in eastern Ladakh on Oct 25, “both sides agreed to continue to use existing mechanisms to resolve any ground issues along the border to maintain stability”, the external affairs ministry said on Wednesday.
This was the first meeting of the “general-level mechanism” in the western sector of the LAC since the 24th round of special representatives talks between national security advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Aug this year.
The meeting between the Indian 14 Corps commander and the South Xinjiang Military District chief was held in “a friendly and cordial atmosphere”. The two sides “noted the progress” since the 22nd round between them a year ago and “shared the view that peace and tranquillity has been maintained in the border areas”, the MEA said.
The troop disengagement at Depsang and Demchok, along with “coordinated patrolling” by the rival troops there, has certainly reduced the chances of any clashes and inadvertent vertical escalation. The trust deficit, however, remains high, sources said.
De-escalation and the consequent de-induction of troops, which will require return of all additional troops to their permanent peacetime locations, and the restoration of status quo that existed before April 2020 are “still nowhere on the horizon”, the sources added.
After initially being caught off-guard, India had pumped in well over 50,000 troops into eastern Ladakh, along with heavy weapon systems like tanks, howitzers and surface-to-air missile systems, to match the PLA after it made multiple incursions into the region in April-May 2020. Similar “mirroring” of forward troop deployments took place in the eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal) and middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) sectors of the LAC as well.
“Over five years later, there have been some troop reductions, which in any case is done during the winters. But the bulk of the troops from either side remain in place. There is an uneasy calm,” a source said.
China’s continuing massive infrastructure build-up all along the LAC, which ensures it can rush additional troops and weapons to forward areas many times faster than India, remains a major concern.
Similarly, China has deployed additional fighters, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and drones at its airfields facing India like Hotan, Kashgar, Gargunsa, Shigatse, Bangda, Nyingchi, Lhunze and Hoping after upgrading them with new and extended runways, hardened shelters, fuel and ammunition storage facilities, as reported earlier by TOI.
Restoration of patrolling rights in areas where “no patrol buffer zones” were established to India’s disadvantage after previous rounds of disengagement till Sept 2022 is also yet to take place.
There was supposed to be only “a temporary moratorium” in patrolling in these buffer zones at Galwan, north bank of Pangong Tso, the Kailash Range and the larger Gogra-Hot Springs area, varying from 3-km to 10-km, which largely came up on what India considers to be its own territory.
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