The Chinese troops have been intruding with impunity into India's territory across the undefined LAC and unrecognised McMahon Line

The ninth round of military commanders’ dialogue last week — after an unusually long gap of nearly three months — confirmed the stalemate in east Ladakh, though a new commander who has never served on the India front, Gen Zhang Xudong, was appointed last month replacing the hawkish Gen Zhao Zongqi. That tensions remain high was apparent from the wounding brawl last week between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army in Sikkim. The latest intrusion in Arunachal Pradesh’s Subansiri district was exposed last week by TV channels, not revealed by the Government, causing a flutter in the Opposition’s ranks but for the Narendra Modi Government it was water off the duck’s back. China is salami slicing territory along the borders in Bhutan, Nepal and India with impunity. Its most brazen successes in land grab are in east Ladakh where the nine-month-long standoff has entered the winter freeze.

Chushul councillor Kinchon Stanzin told a newspaper on January 11 that China holds military positions on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), their tents and bunkers have crept closer to Chushul village and the Chinese have been nibbling territory since 2018. This is not the first Ladakhi complaint about China’s creep tactics. The same paper reported on January 25 that the Chinese are using Indian roads for trespass into Ladakh. Last November, China established Pangda village two km inside Bhutan’s border close to Doklam in Chumbi valley, breaching its sovereignty, but India, though bound by a treaty with Bhutan, chose to ignore it unlike confronting the PLA at Doklam in 2017.

The latest five-km-deep infringement in Arunachal Pradesh — a full blown cluster of 120 houses with 2,000 people — went unchallenged for nearly a year. Even if in disputed territory, it is flagrant violation of the existing protocols and should have been resisted by the Kolkata-based Eastern Command. But not a word was uttered until it was detected by the US-based Planet Lab satellite imagery.

Former ally Shiv Sena has questioned the Centre on the latest intrusions in Arunachal and elsewhere, especially the land lost to China since the BJP Government came to power, and the plans to recover it. The Congress said it hopes the Government will not again give a clean chit to China. Surprisingly, the Government merely “took note of the construction along the border” and ramped up its infrastructure development projects, adding that “the area is disputed and under Chinese possession since 1959”. But it does not entitle China to alter the status quo, converting a disputed area into permanent settlement in violation of border protocols. It was vital and necessary for the Government to resist the year-long construction activity and take up the case with Beijing instead of its leaders stating uncharitably that the areas were gifted to China by Nehru. Why then has Home Minister Amit Shah pledged to retake Aksai Chin, which is under Chinese possession and was lost during Nehru’s time? A parliamentary resolution requiring the Government to retake all land lost to China was displayed in Udhampur’s Northern Command till the mid-eighties!

China has issued a strong rebuttal saying the construction of a village across the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh is beyond reproach because it had never recognised Arunachal, adding: “China’s position on Zangnan (south Tibet) is clear. Our development and construction activities within our own territory are normal.” Global Times has said the border has not yet been demarcated. The Indian Military Operations Directorate records show that China had attacked an Assam Rifles post in 1959 (LongJu incident) at the intrusion site. Developing the border areas is part of Xi Jinping’s plan to populate the disputed borders to legitimise claims to additional territory.

Vast stretches of the LAC in Arunachal are inaccessible while they are within easy reach of China. Chief Minister Pema Khandu has been pushing for an 1100-km highway along the LAC with what he says is the India-Tibet border. This road, when built, will allow troops to switch quickly astride the LAC but it will be a geological challenge for the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).

Besides the multiple intrusions in east Ladakh under the Northern Command’s watch, two intrusions in Eastern Command over the same period are worrying. There are around 24 contested/disputed areas along the McMahon Line/LAC over which surveillance and military vigil has to be tightened. Intrusions took place in Kargil when patrolling and aerial surveillance over the unheld areas ceased. The Chinese have been intruding across the undefined LAC and unrecognised McMahon Line. This coercion has to be countered effectively.

Xi’s aggressive land grab in disputed territory has become political football in India instead of it being addressed in strategic unison. The Government has to stop blaming Nehru and the Congress for their myopic China policy: Instead, take the blame for creating more rhetoric than usable defence capacity to deter Xi’s aggression. Let there be in the Budget Session what was disallowed in the Monsoon Session — an honest debate on Chinese perfidy instead of Rajnath Singh’s strategic soliloquy, “will not compromise territorial integrity” and “a befitting reply”, without naming China after losing territory.

(The writer, a retired Major General, was Commander, IPKF South, Sri Lanka, and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff. The views expressed are personal.)