Dealing With China

Consistency has never been a virtue for the Communist rulers of China in settling their border disputes with the neighbours. They have used different principles for different countries. And this is the biggest bottleneck in arriving at an amicable solution to the present faceoff between the Chinese and Indian troops, argues Prakash Nanda

- Prakash Nanda

For nearly two months, troops of India and China have been facing each other at three places in Ladakh (Pangong sector, Galwan sector and Hot Springs). There have been minor skirmishes, but now the situation is that of a standoff, which, many analysts consider, is likely to be a prolonged one. Because, the Modi government, like its predecessors, cannot take the easy option of declaring that since the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the border has not exactly been identified and accepted by both the countries, perceptions of the LAC differ from time to time by their respective troops, that in these cases the two countries have devised ways to settle the differences through their local commanders and diplomatic means and that there is nothing to worry as both New Delhi and Beijing are committed to “the maintenance of peace and tranquilly” along the LAC as per their bilateral agreement on September 7, 1993.

Committed to nationalism that the Modi government is (at least, it professes so), it cannot hide the facts like its predecessors that since 2002, the Chinese have been systematically transgressing the LAC into the Indian side. If the so-called perceptions vary, then why is that we have not come across a single instance of the Chinese complaining of Indian transgression? And, what is worse, the Chinese have not necessarily gone back to their previous positions after the diplomatic or local commander-level talks have defused the situations in the past.