As China continues to violate the airspace of Taiwan, it has also started getting more aggressive in the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and as per the latest News18 report, the Indian Army stopped a Chinese incursion near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
Some 200 troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had crossed over into Indian territory and tried to damage unoccupied defences, including bunkers of the Indian Army. However, the army not only managed to stop this, but they temporarily detained few Chinese soldiers during the incursion.The incident took place between the border passes of Bum La and Yangtse (25 km east of Bum La) as per the government, The matter was subsequently resolved at the local military commanders’ level and the “situation was defused,”.
This latest incursion comes just weeks after dozens of Chinese soldiers transgressed over 5 km into Indian territory in Barahoti in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district and after spending few hours the Chinese soldiers left the area.
China considers all of Arunachal as “South Tibet” and Xi Jinping in a recent speech said, “China has not yet achieved the complete reunification of the motherland, and has disputes over territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests with many neighbouring countries. Solving these problems is a hurdle we must cross, and it is also a major risk and challenge that we must correctly handle…The motherland must be unified”.
For China, Tawang, the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and hosts to the Galden Namgey Lhatse (also called Tawang Monastery), the second-largest monastery of Tibetan Buddhism in the world and the largest outside Tibet is of huge interest because the totalitarian regime fears the Dalai Lama may ordain his successor outside Tibet — within the Tibetan community in India, perhaps at Tawang.
Ergo, China wants to control Tawang and it also wants India to drop its claim on Aksai Chin and parts of eastern Ladakh in the west.
Beijing is known for bullying all its neighbours that shares a land border with it and also wants to claim the entire South China Sea which will than give China access to the Pacific. However, with India, things are a bit different as China learned from the Galwan valley incident.
For a while, China has been demanding territorial concessions in Arunachal Pradesh and China’s Special Representative Dai Bingguo, who served as on the boundary issue between 2003 and 2013, suggested that the border dispute could be resolved if New Delhi accepts Beijing’s claim over Tawang.
“If the Indian side takes care of China’s concerns in the eastern sector of their border,” Dai said in 2017, adding, “the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address India’s concerns elsewhere.”
The Chinese incursion into Tawang comes when the two sides are preparing for the 13th round of talks for disengagement of troops in the Hot Springs area of eastern Ladakh. However, China is known for holding talks but at the same time, it is famous for ratcheting up conflicts as a form of deception.
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