PLA at it again

In one fell swoop, Chinese troops have undone whatever progress was made during bilateral talks at the military and diplomatic levels in the past two-and-a-half months. Amid the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) carried out ‘provocative’ military movements on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake on the intervening night of August 29 and 30. It was another brazen move to change the status quo. Indian soldiers, who have been in a heightened state of vigil since the Galwan valley clashes in mid-June, took pre-emptive action to foil the attempt. The Indian Army has claimed that PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the standoff.

The development has again exposed the hollowness of Chinese assertions about maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas, even as the Indian armed forces have effectively exercised carte blanche given by the government to scuttle another misadventure along the Line of Actual Control. India’s firmness has also been evident in the diplomatic arena, with the Ministry of Defence withdrawing from a multilateral war game to be held in Russia later this month. Though India has cited the pandemic and ‘consequent difficulties’ for its decision, which wouldn’t have pleased traditional ally Russia, the fact that Chinese and Pakistani troops are expected to attend the exercise had an important bearing on the matter.

The latest skirmish lends greater significance to the upcoming meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Russia, scheduled to be attended by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. India can create an opportunity to red-flag Chinese duplicity, albeit informally, during interactions with the leaders of Russia and other countries. Though China has reasserted that border disputes should be delinked from bilateral ties, India needs to hold its ground and insist on complete disengagement of troops as a precondition for restoring economic cooperation, and that too in a phased, guarded manner. China should be made to realise by India and its allies that ‘business as usual’ is impossible after the unprovoked attacks and attempts to subvert India’s territorial integrity.