China & India Border incursions News and Discussions

[IBRIS]

Chinese troops erect fifth tent in Ladakh, deploy dogs

LEH/NEW DELHI: Showing no signs of withdrawing from the Indian territory after their incursion in Ladakh two weeks ago, Chinese troops have erected an additional tent in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector raising to five the number of such structures in the area.

The Chinese troops have also deployed molosser dogs to keep a vigil, according to latest reports on Monday from the site of incursion, 70km south of Burtse in Ladakh division. The reports said the Chinese side have increased the number of tents to five.

A banner hoisted outside the camp reads in English "you are in Chinese side" with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) personnel maintaining a round-the-clock vigil along with the molosser dogs which are considered as the best for keeping a watch in these high-altitude areas, official sources said.

While their officers were armed with Chinese Makarovs, the PLA soldiers had a variant of AK series of assault rifles.

According to a detailed report, the additional tent has come up after three failed flag meetings between Indian and Chinese armies at Chashul.

The report said aggressive patrolling by Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) had managed to push back intruding Chinese troops back by at least 9km before they settled down at the present location which is nearly 18km inside Indian territory in the DBO Sector. The sector is at an altitude of 17,000 feet.

According to a report submitted to the ministries of home and defence, the incursion was detected by the ITBP on the intervening night of April 15 and 16 which sent its quick reaction team which not only prevented the Chinese PLA personnel from further progressing in the area but also pushed them back across the Rakhi Nallah.

The sources said the situation would have further worsened if the ITBP personnel, deployed at the high altitude, had not moved in quickly.

The Chinese, however, halted their retreat and pitched their "artic" tents well 18km inside the Indian territory.

The ITBP jawans immediately erected flags with message in Mandarin and English reminding the Chinese troops of "peace and tranquillity agreement and asking them to return to their side".

The face-off between the two sides has since continued even as ITBP jawans are assisted by Ladakh Scouts, an infantry regiment of the Army.

There is no aggressive patrolling by either side, the sources said.

 

[IBRIS]

Mulayam Singh says China is our biggest enemy, calls UPA govt incompetent and good for nothing

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav took the lead in targeting the government for "doing nothing" and alleged that it was acting in a "cowardly" manner in dealing with the intrusion.

Describing China as the "biggest enemy", the former defence minister said during Zero Hour, "We have been warning that China has started occupying our territory. But government is not listening to all this."

He said the Indian Army has said it is ready to remove all intruders but there is no action.

"This government is cowardly, incompetent and good for nothing," he said, while objecting to the upcoming visit of Khurshid to China.

Khurshid is scheduled to travel to Beijing on May 9 in connection with preparations for Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit here next month.

 

[Soumitra]

According to great Maun Mohan Singh this is a "localised" problem. Our hands got singed in 62, we had to fight a localised problem in 99 and if he still does not understand their may be repeat in 2013.
Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it

 

[IBRIS]

^^^^ What can we expect from rule of Indian Gandhi Clan and Rahul probably in a Party mood somewhere. Good for nothing government

 

[thestringshredder]

New Delhi, April 29: A turf war among Indian forces is shaping policy in the terrain of tent war while Indian and Chinese troops are in a face-off in Ladakh’s Daulat Beg Oldi sector.

The Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) troops have pitched tents opposite a Chinese camp at Raki Nala in eastern Ladakh where the face-off between the forces of the two countries is now in its 14th day.

But the absence of a clear directive from the government on who is in charge can lead to confusion over who is really in command of the Indian camp at the disputed border — is it the army or is it the ITBP?

The Indian Army has re-stated its demand for operational command of five battalions of the ITBP in Ladakh. Indeed, the army wants operational command of the ITBP all along the border with China but it has suggested a start with Ladakh from where it has reported the maximum number of transgressions of Chinese patrols.

But the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has rejected the demand as it had done in the past. The request is now before the China Study Group (CSG) headed by national security adviser Shivshankar Menon. The CSG comprises the secretaries of the home, defence and external affairs ministries, the cabinet secretary, the vice-chief of army staff and officials that the group co-opts from time to time.

Lt General J.S. Bajwa, who recently retired as director general (infantry), told a meeting here on Sunday that the lack of operational command over the ITBP was a hindrance in a sensitive terrain. BJP MP Tarun Vijay was one of the organisers of the meeting.

The army had first asked for operational command of the ITBP on the border in 1986. But the demands became more insistent since 1999 when a Chinese intrusion at Chip Chap in the DBO sector was reported while Indian troops were engaged in the Kargil war with Pakistan.

The army says that its 14 Corps chief stationed at Leh should be in charge of all forces.

In the past, the home ministry had rejected the demand. The MHA told the government that the ITBP was raised specifically for the China frontier after the 1962 war. In addition, the MHA argued, peacetime border management is done by central police forces according to international norms and the army should be employed only in a “hot war” situation.

The army has counter-argued: in unsettled borders, a “hot war” situation can flare up at any time and escalate fast.

Technically, the Chinese also have border guards on the Line of Actual Control. Even the platoon, which has pitched tents at Raki Nala near DBO — that the Indian government has said is an intrusion of 19km inside India — belongs to the border guards.

But the Chinese border guards are part of the People’s Liberation Army and is directly under its command.

In India, however, central police forces like the ITBP are under the home ministry, and the army, navy, air force and the Coast Guard are under the defence ministry.

The Indian Army has also argued that units of the BSF, that also reports to the MHA, deployed on the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan are under its operational command. In the Northeast, the Assam Rifles, engaged in counter-insurgency operations, is also under the operational command of the army.

The Indian government is, however, hesitant to follow a similar system along the undefined Line of Actual Control because placing a police force under the army could be construed as an aggressive move.

At Raki Nala, however, the troops of the ITBP and the army, from posts in Bush Area (ITBP) and Track Junction, were reported to be getting along well.

Reports sourced from the army said about 10 sentries each from the Indian and Chinese sides are in a face-off barely 100 metres apart and keep guard 24 hours. It is bitterly cold with temperatures dropping well below -10°C at night but the troops are holding up banners, each side asking the other to return to their original positions.

Link - Forget China border, first settle domestic row

 

[xuxu1457]

India should remove Raki Nala, India built it in China's territory

 

[joekrish]

It's high time the army takes over.

 

[Genesis]

The Indian government is, however, hesitant to follow a similar system along the undefined Line of Actual Control because placing a police force under the army could be construed as an aggressive move.
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That's where you draw the line? You build roads and air ports that are for military purpose are on going but you draw the line at placing police under army?!

Indians got some weird perception of what's aggressive.

Besides, with the current situation, that ship has sailed.

 

[newdelhinsa]

India should remove Raki Nala, India built it in China's territory

Raki nala is a natural water stream flowing downhill. Now LoL at yourself 10 times.

 

[xuxu1457]

Raki nala is a natural water stream flowing downhill. Now LoL at yourself 10 times.

a natural water stream flowing downhill?????

 

[President]

India should remove Raki Nala, India built it in China's territory

China should first vacate Tibet and Aksi Chin before coming to the negotiating table

 

[newdelhinsa]

a natural water stream flowing downhill?????

This is Chinese tower complex constructed in Demchok.

 

[longyi]

China should first vacate Tibet and Aksi Chin before coming to the negotiating table

LOL you're obsessed with Tibet, aren't you?

 

[President]

Any prospect of an early resolution of the stand-off in the high Himalayas between India and China may have been dashed by symptoms that suggest that the Chinese troops appear to be digging deeper into their trenches in the areas in Ladakh’s Depsang Valley, deep inside what India considers its territory.

The latest such provocation, in the form of a new tent that the Chinese troops have put up in Depsang Valley, puts paid to publicly articulated statements from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the tension was a “local issue” and would be resolved soon. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid too claimed that the tension will likely have been resolved even before he leaves for Beijing to prepare for Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s upcoming visit to India. Hope, as has been famously said, isn’t a strategy, and the Indian leaders’ pronouncements only accentuate the sense that they are in public denial.

According to media reports, however, the Chinese troops have put up five tents so far, which suggests that they – and the military leadership under whose orders the troops on the ground are acting - are not making any effort to dial back the tension, and on the contrary are actively escalating it.
The Himalayas are no longer a high hurdle. Reuters

The Himalayas are no longer a high hurdle. Reuters

More provocatively, according to these reports, the Chinese troops are also waving banners establishing Chinese territorial rights to the area. “You are in (the) Chinese side,” proclaim these banners, which are evidently directed at the Indian troops that have set up camp nearby to keep watch on the Chinese soldiers.

The Indian government’s response to the crisis so far has been one of restraint in the face of public dares from the opposition to stand up for India’s territorial integrity. On Monday, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, who served as Defence Minister, called the UPA government an assortment of colourful names to draw attention to its placidity in the face of the grave Chinese provocation. His characterisation of China – not Pakistan – as India’s real enemy may have been overly simplistic, and made with political calculations in mind.

Opposition leaders, of course, have the luxury of shooting off their mouths with blustery talk, without bearing any of the responsibility that comes with actual decision-making. And yet the perception that the UPA government has been less than robust in protecting national interests, and not just vis-a-vis China, is of course more widely shared.

Evidently, the Indian Army has provided the political leadership with a range of options that are open to it if the Chinese don’t fold up their tents and leave anytime soon. Presumably these options would involve cutting off the supply lines to these troops, which would put a cap on the number of days they can hold out here. More extreme options – of forcibly evicting the 30-or-so Chinese troops – would also have been considered, perhaps as part of a scenario-building exercise to draw up contingency plans. But that would truly be the option of the last resort, given the very real risk of a heightened conflict that it comes with.

There’s very little percentage for the Indian side in being drawn by the nose into a border conflict with a much stronger China. After all, it was an adventurist ‘forward policy’ that Jawharlal Nehru embraced that led to the 1962 war. At that time too, Nehru was at the receiving end of much pillorying in Parliament by the opposition for his government’s naive “bhai-bhai” approach to China despite ample evidence that that brotherly sentiment was not reciprocated. And although both countries have come a long way away from 1962, the irony of today’s situation is that it is the Chinese troops that are testing Indian resolve with their own unstated “forward policy’.

But having considered all of the options that the Army put on the table, the political leadership appears to have opted to go out of its way to signal to the Chinese that they are keen to avoid an escalation in the level of tension. Key interlocutors, including national security advisor Shivshankar Menon, who knows a thing or two about dealing with the Chinese and has invested much effort in building up goodwill in Beijing, are also counselling restraint.

There isn’t much to be said in favour of public posturing and drawing a line in the Himalayan heights from which one might soon have to scurry back. But there’s more than ample space for conveying to the Chinese side in private that the case for an early resolution of the border dispute – which Chinese President Xi Jinping said China is keen to see – isn’t exactly advanced by China inflaming public sentiment in India by changing the de facto arrangement that has been faithfully adhered to for decades now.

Perhaps this incursion was intended by the new Chinese leadership to signal Chinese frustration at the lack of progress in the talks on the border dispute despite years of negotiations. If that is so, it reflects raw power, not sagacity, and is insensitive to the consideration that this brinkmanship game actually makes it harder for the Indian side to make any concession, even if it is on a reciprocal basis.

Living in denial: How not to deal with Chinese incursion - Firstpost

 

[Psyops]

India has already conceded defeat to China.