INDIA-CHINA: Is the New Détente Credible?

Indian and Chinese troops have agreed to disengage at multiple points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. But the massive unprecedented build-up along the long LAC and the new permanent fortifications in the Pangong Tso area challenge optimism about a cessation of hostilities.

- Sandeep Unnithan

The corps commanders of India and China met at a border outpost here a week after the June 15 incident, which saw the worst violence on the India-China border in the past 53 years. But this is only the first ‘step back’ from the biggest military deployment by the two sides since the 1962 war. India, at least, can now say it’s a direct response to China’s attempt at forcibly altering the undemarcated 3,448 km LAC between the two countries.

The June 22 corps commander-level talks between Lt General Harinder Singh of the Leh-based 14 Corps and Major General Liu Lin of the South Xinjiang Military District, according to government sources, were held in a ‘positive and constructive atmosphere’—a significant choice of words considering blood had been spilled on the border for the first time in decades. The marathon 12-hour talks arrived at a ‘mutual consensus to disengage’. Modalities for disengagement from all friction areas in eastern Ladakh will be taken forward by both sides.