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''' '' CHINA -INDIA- CHATS '' ''' :
14-000 FEET
NOBODY THINKS CHINA AND INDIA ARE ABOUT TO or can ever go to war. But the escalating buildup has turned into their most serious confrontation since 2017 and maybe a sign of more trouble to come -
As the world's two most populous increasingly bump up against each other in one of the bleakest and most remote borderlands on earth :
President Trump, unsolicited stepped in just days later, offering on Twitter to mediate what he called ''a raging border dispute''.
High in the Himalayas, an enormous fistfight erupted in early May between the soldiers of China and India. Brawls at 14,000 along their inhospitable and disputed frontier are not terribly unusual, but what happened next was.
A few days later, Chinese troops confronted Indian soldiers again, this time at several other remote border points in the Himalayas, some more than 1,000 miles apart. Since then, both armies have rushed in thousands of reinforcements.
Indian analysts say that China has beefed up its forces with artillery, armored vehicles, troop carriers, dump trucks and excavators and that China is now occupying Indian territory.
No shots have been fired as the defecto border code dictates, but the soldiers have fought fiercely with rocks, wooden clubs and their hands in a handful of clashes. In one melee at the glacial lake Pangong Tso, several Indian troops were hurt badly enough that they had to be evacuated by helicopter and Indian analysts and Chinese troops were injured as well.
For India, the Chinese incursions and maneuvers at multiple points along more than 2,100 mile border have raised suspicions of a concerted campaign to exert pressure on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With the world consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, China has acted forcefully to defend its territorial claims, including those in the Himalayas.
The confrontation with India ''fits a broader pattern of Chinese assertiveness,'' said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, noting that it was the fourth flare-up since China's leader Xi Jinping rose to power at the end of 2012.
Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, cited a source close to the People's Liberation Army in a May 18 article who said China's military bolstered its forces in response to what it considered illegal construction by India in or near Chinese territory.
As the world's two most populous increasingly bump up against each other in one of the bleakest and most remote borderlands on earth :
President Trump, unsolicited stepped in just days later, offering on Twitter to mediate what he called ''a raging border dispute''.
High in the Himalayas, an enormous fistfight erupted in early May between the soldiers of China and India. Brawls at 14,000 along their inhospitable and disputed frontier are not terribly unusual, but what happened next was.
A few days later, Chinese troops confronted Indian soldiers again, this time at several other remote border points in the Himalayas, some more than 1,000 miles apart. Since then, both armies have rushed in thousands of reinforcements.
Indian analysts say that China has beefed up its forces with artillery, armored vehicles, troop carriers, dump trucks and excavators and that China is now occupying Indian territory.
No shots have been fired as the defecto border code dictates, but the soldiers have fought fiercely with rocks, wooden clubs and their hands in a handful of clashes. In one melee at the glacial lake Pangong Tso, several Indian troops were hurt badly enough that they had to be evacuated by helicopter and Indian analysts and Chinese troops were injured as well.
For India, the Chinese incursions and maneuvers at multiple points along more than 2,100 mile border have raised suspicions of a concerted campaign to exert pressure on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With the world consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, China has acted forcefully to defend its territorial claims, including those in the Himalayas.
The confrontation with India ''fits a broader pattern of Chinese assertiveness,'' said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, noting that it was the fourth flare-up since China's leader Xi Jinping rose to power at the end of 2012.
Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, cited a source close to the People's Liberation Army in a May 18 article who said China's military bolstered its forces in response to what it considered illegal construction by India in or near Chinese territory.
India has recently stepped up efforts to improve the roads its military uses to crisscross the mountain passes in the Ladakh region, on the border of Tibet. Those roads are not easy to build. They snake across a gravely landscape of high altitude rivers, glaciers and passes at 17,000 feet above sea level.
China is also sensitive about the Indian border because it abuts two regions within China that Beijing is especially concerned about : Tibet and Xinjiang.
The spark of the recent tensions seems to have been one particular new road that the Indians have been building to reach a military airstrip at India's northernmost border outpost, which was the site of another border standoff in 2013.
The countries have established mechanisms for resolving border conflicts since 1962, when they went to war in the Himalayas, with India losing badly:
''There hasn't been a shot fired in years,'' Ms. Madan said, adding that the last death from a border skirmish happened in 1975.
Still tensions could easily flare: ''All of this is happening in the area where they fought in the 1962 war,'' she said. ''There is a lot of baggage associated with this on both sides.''
Professor Brahma Chellaney, - of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, in New Delhi sums up thus :
''All this could be Beijing's way of sending a ''political message'' to India not to get too close to the United States and back off its criticism of the way China has handled the coronavirus.''
The World Students Society thanks authors and researchers Jeffrey Gettleman and Steven Lee Myers, Huri Kumar, Salman Masood and Claire Fu.
With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011.
''' Incursions - Suspicions '''
China is also sensitive about the Indian border because it abuts two regions within China that Beijing is especially concerned about : Tibet and Xinjiang.
The spark of the recent tensions seems to have been one particular new road that the Indians have been building to reach a military airstrip at India's northernmost border outpost, which was the site of another border standoff in 2013.
The countries have established mechanisms for resolving border conflicts since 1962, when they went to war in the Himalayas, with India losing badly:
''There hasn't been a shot fired in years,'' Ms. Madan said, adding that the last death from a border skirmish happened in 1975.
Still tensions could easily flare: ''All of this is happening in the area where they fought in the 1962 war,'' she said. ''There is a lot of baggage associated with this on both sides.''
Professor Brahma Chellaney, - of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, in New Delhi sums up thus :
''All this could be Beijing's way of sending a ''political message'' to India not to get too close to the United States and back off its criticism of the way China has handled the coronavirus.''
The World Students Society thanks authors and researchers Jeffrey Gettleman and Steven Lee Myers, Huri Kumar, Salman Masood and Claire Fu.
With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011.
''' Incursions - Suspicions '''
Good Night and God Bless
SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless
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