NEW DELHI: A border stand-off between India and China has been defused after troops from both sides retreated to their positions in Ladakh province of Kashmir.
India claimed Chinese troops breached the Line of Actual Control, the temporary and still-disputed border between the two, when they set up camp three weeks ago on the Depsang plateau, near the Karakoram Pass linking China and Pakistan.
That prompted New Delhi to order its Indo Tibetan Border Police to advance to within 300m of the temporary Chinese installation, raising fears of military escalation between the nuclear-armed nations.
Late on Sunday night, both sides ordered their troops to withdraw, though it was not clear whether People’s Liberation Army troops had moved back over the LAC.
The stand-down followed intense negotiations, and as India threatened to cancel a preparatory visit to China by Foreign Minister Salman Kurshid ahead of a planned trip to India by Chinese Premier Le Keqiang this month.
“Both sides reached an agreement on Sunday night after a meeting was held between border commanders. We will withdraw our troops and China will do the same,” a senior Indian army official said yesterday. “The withdrawal process has begun,” another Indian official said.
Beijing claimed its move, said by some to be one of the boldest incursions by either side since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, was a response to a build-up of Indian military infrastructure on the LAC in violation of previous agreements.
On April 15, PLA troops set up tents and a giant banner 19km inside Indian-controlled territory, claiming the Depsang plateau as its own.
While Indian maps delineate that region as Indian territory, the border has yet to be mutually clarified, though the neighbours have signed two accords to maintain peace.
New Delhi has sought to play down the border rift, with Mr Kurshid describing it as little more than a pimple on the pretty face of Indian-China relations.
But analysts have warned the move could represent yet another front in China’s increasingly aggressive territorial claims, which have already escalated tensions with Japan, Vietnam and The Philippines.
Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies with New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research, said he believed Beijing’s latest move was designed to exploit a strategic weakness in India’s leadership, mired as it is in multiple layers of bureaucratic scandal less than 12 months from a national election.
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