India's bridge, China's bunker block road to detente on LAC

A bridge constructed by India and a bunker built by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, recently, have come in the way of the efforts to defuse tension along the disputed boundary between the two nations on the northern bank of the Pangong Tso lake in eastern Ladakh.

As the stand-off between Indian Army and the Chinese PLA continued along the disputed boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had another meeting with the top military brass on Friday and reviewed the situation.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat and the chiefs of the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy – Gen M M Naravane, Air Chief Marshal R K Singh Bhadauria and Admiral Karambir Singh – attended the meeting with the Defence Minister. He was briefed about the follow-ups to the June 6 meeting between the Corps Commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA.

The divisional commanders of the Indian and Chinese armies had another round of meeting on Friday, in order to work out a way to implement the consensus reached at the June 6 meeting of their seniors.

However, what made it difficult to fully resolve the stand-off is the Chinese PLA’s refusal to withdraw troops from “Finger 4” on the bank of the Pangong Tso lake and demolish the bunker and the moat-like structure it built to deny Indian Army soldiers access to an area they regularly patrolled before the stand-off started.

New Delhi also rejected the Beijing’s demand to stop construction of a bridge over a rivulet. The bridge is being constructed on one of the roads India is building to its forward positions along the disputed boundary with China.

The new roads will be linked with the 255-kilometer-long strategic road the Border Roads Organization of India already constructed from Darbuk via Shyok to its Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) military base. A source in New Delhi stated that the location of the bridge was not close to the LAC and the area where it is being built undisputedly belongs to India.

India conveyed to China during engagements between diplomats and military officials that it was well within its sovereign rights to build infrastructure in its territory and it would keep doing so.

The Corps Commanders of the Indian and Chinese armies are likely to meet again in the coming days. The senior diplomats of the two nations had a video-conference on June 5 and they may again hold another virtual meet soon, sources in New Delhi said.

Lt Gen Harinder Singh, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 14 corps of the Indian Army, led the delegation from India in the meeting with the Chinese PLA officials at Chushul-Moldo point on the LAC on June 6. The Chinese PLA delegation was led by its commander in charge of the South Xinjiang Military Region, Maj Gen Liu Lin. The meeting was followed by another between Major General Abhijeet Bapat of the 3 Infantry Division of the Indian Army and his counterpart in the PLA on Wednesday and Friday.

The PLA thinned out its troops from at least four stand-off points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the de facto border between India and China – over the past few days. But it did not withdraw its soldiers, who transgressed the LAC into the territory of India on the northern bank of the Pangong Tso lake.

It also maintained additional troops it deployed on its side of the LAC after the stand-off started following a scuffle between the soldiers of the two sides on May 5.