India and China share a border of about 4000 Kilometres. The India-China border has its history of war and bloodshed. Skirmishes on the border are common and small disputes do not shock either government much. So much so, that the Indian Army Chief has said that the recent face-off between the two countries is not that concerning and that people shouldn’t read into it much. While India maintains that it only strives for peace between the two nations, a newspaper under the Chinese Communist Party called the Global Times claims that India tends to take tough and irrational actions when it comes to border disputes. In other recent developments on the border row between India and China, The United States of America seems to have India’s back on the issue.
The United States believes that China has been showing provocative and disturbing behaviour on both the South China Sea matter and the India China border. Alice Wells, a senior diplomat from the United States released this statement when neighbouring countries India and China increases troops (around Pangong Tso Lake and Galwan Valley) a couple of weeks after their conflict. The United States believes that aggression on the part of China isn’t just rhetorical and states the examples of the South China Sea issue or the row on the India-China border to support their belief that China has shown disturbing behaviour regarding its growing power. China, on the other hand, claims that the Indian army had crossed the line across the western section of the Sino-Indian border and the Sikkim section with intentions of entering the Chinese territory. It further says that it has asked the Indian troops to return to their country and go back to the status quo.
All this in the middle of a pandemic because 2020 isn’t problematic enough already, nice.
