India, China military commanders to meet today, focus on measures to avert flashpoints

The eyeball-to-eyeball stand-off between the soldiers of the two sides along the LAC in eastern Ladakh is unlikely to end anytime soon

The senior military commanders of India and China will on Monday discuss measures to be put in place to avert flashpoints, as the eyeball-to-eyeball stand-off between the soldiers of the two sides along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh is unlikely to end anytime soon.

The senior commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will hold another round of talks at Chushul near the LAC – the de facto boundary between the two nations in the western sector. This will be the seventh round of talks between them after the stand-off started in early May.

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The two sides are expected to discuss a set of measures to avoid any violent face-off along the LAC as it might take weeks or months to restart the stalled process of mutual withdrawal of troops and end the stand-off. The proposals being discussed included setting perimeters around the forward positions of both sides on the friction points along the LAC.

The senior military commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA will try to reach an agreement to avoid breach perimeters of each other’s positions, as such action can trigger response from the other side and may escalate into a conflict, a source in New Delhi told DH.

The source said that the efforts to restart the process to pull back soldiers would continue, but both the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA acknowledged the complexity of the disengagement exercise, which would require the redeployment of troops by each side towards regular posts on the respective sides of the LAC.

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It would require mutually agreed reciprocal actions and might take time.

“What however is urgently needed is to ensure stability and avert an escalation of tension that could lead to violent face-offs like the one in Galwan Valley,” said the source, who is aware of New Delhi’s discussions with Beijing for resolution of the stand-off.

The Indian Army lost 20 of its soldiers in the clash with the Chinese PLA personnel along the Galwan Valley on June 15. The PLA too suffered casualties, but never made public the number of its soldiers, who were injured or killed.

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The PLA accused the Indian Army of firing warning shots on its personnel on the south bank of Pangong Tso on September 7. New Delhi, however, alleged that the PLA personnel had opened fire in the air to intimidate the Indian Army soldiers. It was the first incident of firing along the India-China disputed boundary since 1975.

The sixth round of talks between the senior military commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA on September 21 ended with both sides agreeing to stop sending more soldiers to the face-off points along the disputed boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh.

They however could not end the stalemate over withdrawal of large numbers of troops the two sides already deployed since the stand-off started.