Chinese troops incursions in Indian controlled territories - News updates and Discussions

[Joe Shearer]

Kuomintang in Kol?

Yes. There was a large contingent of KMT adherents who took refuge in India after 1950. Interesting, isn't it?

 

[FOOLS_NIGHTMARE]

No one fights for no one.

There is absolutely no doubt it,but sometimes an act of support does boast the morale of the friends. In 1965 Turkey,Iran and China did lent us a lot of support,including aircraft and AB. In the current scenario if China masses its hardware along its border with India, and India deploys more men to counter it will RELIEVE a lot of pressure on our side. We can easily handle India if the force levels on both sides becomes favourable.

 

[Asian.Century]

Footage claiming to show 'Indian troops beating a captured Chinese soldier' is condemned by Delhi as both nations deploy forces along their border amid escalating territorial dispute

• Video filmed around two weeks ago allegedly shows beating at Pangong Lake
• Lake flows through Indian and Chinese borders and is site of recent skirmishes
• Indian Army requested that local media not circulate the viral footage
• Chinese accounts have hit back with images purporting to show captive Indians

By Ross Ibbetson For Mailonline

Published: 14:47 BST, 2 June 2020 | Updated: 15:21 BST, 2 June 2020

Footage which claims to show Indian troops beating a captured Chinese soldier has been condemned by Delhi amid an escalating dispute at the Himalayan border.

Believed to have been filmed around two weeks ago on the banks of Pangong Lake, a mile into Indian territory, the footage purports to show Indian forces battering a People's Liberation Army soldier and smashing up a Chinese armoured car.

The Indian Army warned local media that circulating the 'mala fide' (dishonest) footage was 'likely to vitiate (damage) the current situation on the borders.'

India and China fought a frontier war along the 2,175 mile border in 1962 and there have been regular spats, though no shot has been fired since the 1970s.

+8

+8

Believed to have been filmed around two weeks ago on the banks of Pangong Lake, a mile into Indian territory, the footage purports to show Indian forces battering a People's Liberation Army soldier and smashing up a Chinese armoured car

+8

The two countries fought a frontier war along the 2,175 mile border in 1962 and there have been regular spats, though no shot has been fired since the 1970s (the red territory is controlled by India, and the beige and grey stripes, Aksai Chin, is Chinese but claimed by India)

The latest tensions blew up on May 9 when dozens of Chinese and Indian soldiers were injured in fistfights and stone-throwing in Sikkim state. Many Indian soldiers are still in hospital.


The 1962 Sino-Indian War


Aksai Chin is located either in the Indian state of Ladakh or the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

It is an almost uninhabited high-altitude scrub land traversed by the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway.

The other disputed territory is hundreds of miles away to the east of Tibet.

The 1962 Sino-Indian War was fought on these two frontiers as Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put it, a struggle over land where 'not even a blade of grass grows.'

Chinese motivations for the war centred on percieved efforts by India to subvert Beijing's interests in Tibet.

Just a few years before the war, the Indians had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama after the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

According to the CIA at the time, the Chinese 'were motivated to attack by one primary consideration - their determination to retain the ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying to take that ground.'

Indian motivations included, testing Chinese resolve, testing who the Soviets would back and to garner sympathy from the United States.



The main showdown is now in Ladakh centred around the Galwan valley which controls access to several strategic points on their Himalayan border.

India's army chief General Manoj Naravane downplayed the 'temporary and short-duration face-offs.'

A week after making those remarks in mid-May, the general flew north to visit the 14th Corps HQ in Leh, Ladakh's capital, The Economist reported, suggesting something more serious was afoot.

The two sides have blamed each other but analysts say India's building of new roads in the region may have been the fuse for the dispute. Both sides have dispatched reinforcements and heavy equipment to the zone.

The recent video from Pangong Lake is undated but purports to show Indian forces, perhaps Indo-Tibetan security forces, attacking a Chinese PLA soldier.

Wherever this video has been circulated on Twitter, there are Chinese accounts which have hit back with a photo which purports to show bloodied and unconscious Indian soldiers bound with rope.

Their captors, who wear the Chinese PLA uniforms with golden stars on their caps, are also seen in surgical masks, suggesting it was taken during the pandemic.

The Indian press have claimed that Chinese troops have pushed several miles into Indian territory, smashing up Indian outposts and bridges, and digging in with their tents and trenches.

In Ladakh, flash points reported in May include at the confluence of the Galwan and Shyok rivers, the Hot Springs region and Pangong Lake.

In the Galwan Valley soldiers have been locked in a weeks-long face-off. India's foreign ministry spokesman said in May: 'It is Chinese side that has recently undertaken activity hindering India's normal patrolling patterns.'

+8

Wherever this video has been circulated on Twitter, there are Chinese accounts which have hit back with a photo which purports to show bloodied and unconscious Indian soldiers bound with rope. Their captors, who wear the Chinese PLA uniforms with golden stars on their caps, are also seen in surgical masks, suggesting it was taken during the pandemic

It is unclear how many troops the Chinese have in the region, former army colonel Ajai Shukla believes there to be several PLA brigades, which means thousands of men.

The bulk of these troops are likely positioned at the rear behind those leading the incursions into Indian territory.





Share this article

The intrusions have been 'fast in-and-out' forays, according to The Print, with around 40 to 60 Chinese men deployed.

The Indian newspaper carried out an investigation of the videos circulating on social media and compared them to satellite images of the Indian bases.

The beating meted out to the alleged PLA soldier happened just over a mile inside Indian territory and was not far from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp.

The investigation claims that the incident took place around May 19-21 and that there was considerable 'beefing up' of the ITBP base shortly after.

The vehicle which is attacked by the Indian forces is a Dongfeng CSK131, a Chinese version of the US Humvee, which is used for high-speed reconnaissance and would match the strategies they have allegedly employed.

+8

The Print reports that satellite imagery reveals the only time Chinese vessels came close to the border in the last 14 days was to travel to Fox Point (the peninsula which juts into Pangong Lake in this satellite image). The territory to the east of the peninsula is Chinese, to the west, Indian

In the second image, which has been used as a counter-attack by Twitter accounts loyal to Beijing, badly beaten Indian forces are seen tied up by the Chinese. A boat can be seen in the background.

The Print reports that satellite imagery reveals the only time Chinese vessels came close to the border in the last 14 days was to travel to Fox Point on May 22.

The Indian incursion into the Chinese side is believed to be around 700ft, much less of an intrusion than that by PLA soldier days before who was beaten up outside his Humvee.

Although General Naravane is perhaps justified in dismissing the skirmishes as not unusual, several of the forays are in areas west of the Galwan Valley that China was not thought to have previously claimed.

On May 25 the Chinese state-controlled Global Times said Indian troops had been trespassing on Chinese territory and wrote: 'The Galwan Valley region is Chinese territory.'

The Galwan Valley was formally handed back to the Indians after the war of 1962.

Build up at the Line of Actual Control on the disputed border between China and India is seen in this handout satellite image of Pangong Lake

Recently build buildings and roads surround Pangong Lake close to the Line of Actual Control

The Global Times report claimed that Indian troops were trying to erect illegal defence facilities since the beginning of May and that China had border controls in response to Indian provocations in the Galwan Valley.

One reason for the heightened tension could be a new road built to Daulat Beg Oldi, the world's highest airstrip and the site of an intense Sino-Indian dispute in 2013.

The road allows for the rapid and vast movement of Indian troops into the region.

Writing in the Indian Express last week, former Indian diplomat, Phunchok Stobdan, wrote: 'The situation remains tense at Sirijap's cliff spurs and also at the Tso, where troops are chasing each other in high-speed patrol boats.

'Clearly, intrusions are part of China's never-ending effort to push Indian troops westward of the Indus and Shyok rivers and reach the 1960 claimed line.'

Build up at the Line of Actual Control on the disputed border between China and India is seen in this satellite image

China has not commented directly on the heightened tensions along the mountain border, but it noted that its troops have consistently maintained peace and tranquillity in the area.

India's defence ministry on Sunday warned the public about fake social media videos showing fighting on the border.

'Currently no violence is happening. Differences are being addressed through interaction between military commanders,' a ministry statement insisted.

The US president this week tweeted an offer to mediate in what he called a 'raging' dispute.

efence Minister Rajnath Singh said he spoke to US Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday to emphasise that India and China have mechanisms to resolve 'problems' through talks at diplomatic and military levels.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ured-Chinese-soldier-amid-border-tension.html

 

[IHK_PK]

Also found it relevant......IHK.

Echoes of Kargil: China intrusion can lead to India losing DBO link

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 1st June 20

In what the army is recognizing as a repeat of Pakistan’s 1999 Kargil intrusions, but this time by China in eastern Ladakh, troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continue consolidating their defences in the Galwan River and Pangong Lake areas, up to three kilometres (km) inside territory that the Indian Army has patrolled and claimed for decades.

Just as the Kargil intrusions allowed Pakistani troops to dominate the Srinagar-Zojila-Kargil-Leh highway and threatened to cut off Ladakh from the north; the Chinese intrusion into the Galwan River valley allows PLA troops to overlook the strategic Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DSDBO) highway and cut off the army’s lone year-round connection with its isolated “Sub-Sector North” (SSN), at the base of the Karakoram Pass.

PLA soldiers that have established themselves at the mouth of the Galwan River valley at its confluence with the Shyok River are just one-and-a-half kilometres from the DSDBO road. They overlook the road, which winds along the Shyok River valley, and can bring down artillery and missile fire to prevent its use.

The PLA apparently intends to dominate this road permanently. Even as top Chinese officials declare the issue can be resolved through dialogue, PLA intruders are building bunkers while PLA engineers are connecting their forward troops with China’s formidable road infrastructure on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Government sources conservatively estimate that the PLA has captured more than 60 square kilometres of Indian-patrolled territory in the last month – equally divided between the northern bank of the Pangong Lake and the Galwan River sectors.

Chinese troops now block access to several Indian “Patrolling Points” (PPs) along the LAC, which Indian army patrols have regularly visited for decades to assert their claim over the area. Amongst them are PP-14, 16, 18 and 19.

At this time of the year, when the risk of Chinese intrusions is highest, it has been customary for the army’s Udhampur-based Northern Command to move reserve formations into the area, ostensibly for “training exercises”. But this year, reserve troops were retained in their peacetime locations because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Consequently, there has been a dire shortage of reserve troops to react to the PLA’s multiple intrusions. By the time the northern army was able to move reserves into the area, the PLA had already consolidated its hold over its newly acquired positions.

Army headquarters in New Delhi is coming round to the view that top generals in Ladakh have been caught napping. There is growing talk about replacing the corps commander in Leh, and even the northern army commander in Udhampur.

After the Kargil intrusions of 1999, which an enquiry blamed on “intelligence failure”, not a single general lost his job or was replaced. The army pinned the entire blame on a single brigadier in Kargil.

A retired defence intelligence chief, speaking anonymously, blames the current situation on an intelligence, as well as an operational failure. “The Chinese have always been ultra-sensitive to India expanding its presence in northern Ladakh. That is because this adjoins the Aksai Chin, through which China has constructed its strategic Western Highway that connects Tibet with Xinjiang. When we built the 255-kilometre DBDSO Road through this area, why did the army not deploy troops on the eastern side of the Shyok, especially in the Galwan Valley, to protect the eastern approaches from the Chinese side?” he says.

The officer cites the Chinese intrusion in 2013 into Depsang, in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector, soon after India activated a landing ground there and beefed up troop numbers.

Within the army, there is growing concern that New Delhi will allow the Chinese to retain the territory they have occupied in the last month. In public statements last week, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has already conceded that the alignment of the LAC, and therefore the ownership of territory, is unclear in this area.