Pacts are meant to be kept      

Why China demanded Indian troops withdraw

Indian obduracy and hegemonic designs have irked all its neighbours including superpowers like China and impoverished ones like Bhutan and Nepal. Sikkim was annexed by India through a dubious and rigged referendum in 1975. At the time China protested and rejected it as illegal. While India continues to pound Pakistani positions across the Line of Control (LOC) on a regular basis, inflicting serious casualties and executing false flag operations, blaming Pakistan; simultaneously it is brow beating China to deter it from launching development projects to help its less developed neighbours.

The current standoff began at the end of June when Indian troops stopped Chinese workers from carrying out a road-building project in a disputed border area. Both countries have about 3,000 soldiers on each side of the border in the area, which is also close to the mountainous country of Bhutan. Troops from the two sides then confronted each other close to a strategic valley controlled by China that separates India from Bhutan – a close Indian ally – and gives China access to the so-called Chicken’s Neck, a thin strip of land that connects India to its remote northeast regions. In retaliation for the Indian move, China cut off access to a group of Indian pilgrims trying to cross a Chinese pass on their way to Mount Kailash, a sacred site in Tibet for Hindus and Buddhists.

Two parts of the border are the main focus of long-running disputes. The larger section lies to the east in a border area stretching between Bhutan and Myanmar. India’s side of the border covers Arunachal Pradesh, but China has claims in the area, which it calls South Tibet. India controls the Tawang monastery on its side of the border, a source of contention because it is one of the holy sites for Tibetan Buddhists. India has been provoking China for decades, giving asylum to Dalai Lama, who continues to incite Tibetans against China. India recently invited the U.S. Ambassador in New Delhi to tour Tawang, only to taunt Beijing.

The other main flashpoint on the two countries’ border is to the west on India’s border with the Chinese region of Xinjiang. The Aksai Chin area is administered by Hotan County in Xinjiang, but areas are also claimed by India as parts of the Ladakh region of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The current stand-off is over a different location, which focuses on a remote pocket of land known in Chinese as Donglang which borders with the Indian state of Sikkim and Bhutan.

The area is under Chinese control.

Disputes over the line of the border with Tibet are arguably a result of British colonialism.

A deal was reached in 1914 to demarcate the border between what was then British-controlled India and Tibet – the so-called McMahon Line.

The agreement was never recognised by China, but it was open to a land swap deal in which India could keep what it claims on the eastern stretches of the two countries’ border, with China keeping Aksai Chin in the west. The western section of the border was non-negotiable for Beijing as it provided the best access into Tibet from the rest of China. New Delhi rejected any suggestion of giving up territory in contested areas, deeming them inviolable parts of the nation’s territory.

Chinese and Indian troops fought a war in 1962 after a series of skirmishes heightened tensions on the border, in which Indian troops received a thrashing. Indian Defence Minister has taunted that 2017 is not 1962; implying that India is ready to give China a bloody nose and avenge the Indian defeat in 1962. China has called India’s bluff and apparently New Delhi will have to blink first.

Beijing argues that the Convention of Calcutta, dated 1890, set out the Sikkim issue and that there should be no dispute about the territory on which China’s troops were trying to build the road.

India and China have held 15 rounds of border talks since the mid-1990s, but any gains have been limited. The border is normally peaceful, with not a shot fired in over 50 years, but the disputes are far from settled. Occasional flare-ups have occurred on the border in recent years, deepening the sometimes tense relations between China and India.

India complained of a “deep incursion” into its territory four years ago in which a platoon of about 30 Chinese soldiers entered the Daulat Beg Oldi area in the Depsang Valley of eastern Ladakh in Indian-administered Kashmir. Chinese and Indian soldiers stood barely 100 meters apart at times at this easternmost point of the Karakoram Range on the western sector of the China-India border. Both sides eventually withdrew.

Earlier this week, China said that India was violating an 1890 border agreement between Britain and China that previous Indian governments have pledged to uphold, and it should be respected to end a “very serious” incursion by India.

The border stand-off on the plateau next to the mountainous Indian state of Sikkim, which borders China, has ratcheted up tension between the neighbouring giants, who share a 3,500km frontier, large parts of which are disputed.

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing that the Sikkim part of the border had been settled in the 1890 agreement, and previous Indian governments had many times affirmed that in writing.

“Pacts must be respected – this is a basic principle of international law,” Geng said. Indian troops crossing onto the Chinese side were a violation of this historical agreement and the United Nations charter, he added. “The nature of this is very serious,” Geng said, reiterating a demand for India to withdraw its troops to its side.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs referred to a statement it made last week, when it warned China that construction of the road near their border would have serious security implications.

Analysts in New Delhi said that India had intervened on behalf of Bhutan. As the tiny Himalayan Kingdom was not party to the 1890 agreement between Britain and China, the dispute was between China and Bhutan over where their common border lies.

Bhutan said last week that the road was being built inside its territory.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi exchanged pleasantries on the side-lines of the G-20 summit in the German city of Hamburg but tensions prevail because India is bent upon mocking China. The onus of any acceleration in hostilities rests upon India.