'Indian, Chinese troops briefly engaged in face-off in Tawang sector last week'

It is learnt that the face-off took place around 10 days ago when nearly 100 Chinese army personnel tried to enter the Indian territory but were forced back

Nearly 200 soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of late made an attempt to transgress into the territory of India in Arunachal Pradesh – just weeks after making a similar bid at Barahoti in Uttarakhand.

The incursion attempts by the PLA soldiers in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh in the recent weeks triggered concerns in New Delhi about the possibility of the 17-month-long military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the western sector of the disputed boundary spreading to the middle and eastern sectors too.

The Indian Army soldiers intercepted the Chinese PLA personnel after they transgressed into the territory of India between Bum La and Yangtse near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh last week. The situation was resolved after the local commanders intervened, sources in New Delhi said on Friday. A similar transgression attempt by about 100 PLA soldiers at Barahoti in Uttarakhand had been reported a few weeks back, although they too had returned after a few hours.

Read | India matching Chinese troop build-up on LAC: Naravane

The PLA’s incursion bids in the eastern and middle sector of the disputed China-India boundary took place even as New Delhi and Beijing of late agreed that the senior military commanders of the two nations would hold another round of talks between the senior military commanders of the two nations soon to resolve the stand-off in the western sector.

The stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh had started in April-May 2020 after China had deployed a large number of troops along its disputed boundary with India in eastern Ladakh, apparently to push the line westward – thus flouting the border peace pacts signed by the two neighbouring nations in 1993 and 1996.

The LAC marks the de facto boundary between the two nations in the western sector, although the two sides have differences over the alignment of the line. They also have similar disagreements about the alignment of the de facto boundary in the middle and eastern sectors too.

The officials in New Delhi on Friday sought to play down the recent incursion bid by the Chinese PLA personnel in Arunachal Pradesh, stating that such incidents kept on happening due to differences in perceptions about the alignment of the lines, which serve as the de facto boundary in the absence of a demarcated boundary.

The military stand-off in eastern Ladakh had reached a flashpoint with the Galwan Valley clash on June 15, 2020, when the Indian Army had lost 20 of its soldiers and the Chinese PLA four of its personnel. After long negotiations over months, the two sides mutually withdrew frontline troops from the northern and the southern banks of Pangong Tso as well as from the face-off point at Gogra Post earlier this year. But the stand-off remained unresolved in other locations along the LAC, even as one-and-a-half years passed since it had started.

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