Does the prime minister’s assertion mean the MEA was wrong to accuse the PLA of crossing the LAC and trying to alter the status quo? In turn, does this mean that India has now handed over the Galwan valley and estuary to the Chinese?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the all-party meeting to discuss the India-China standoff in Ladakh on Friday. Photo: PTI
Modi made his statement at the all-party meeting called by the government on Friday to discuss the violence on the India-China border that has taken the relationship between the two countries to their lowest level in over five decades.
“Na koi wahan hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai aur nahi koi ghusa hua hai, na hi hamari koi post kisi dusre ke kabze mein hain (No one has intruded and nor is anyone intruding, nor has any post been captured by someone)”, he said in closing remarks that were carried on television.
पूर्वी लद्दाख में जो हुआ, इसको लेकर आपने रक्षा मंत्री जी और विदेश मंत्री जी को सुना भी और Presentation को भी देखा । न वहां कोई हमारी सीमा में घुस आया है और न ही कोई घुसा हुआ है, न ही हमारी कोई पोस्ट किसी दूसरे के कब्जे में है: PM @narendramodi
Modi’s statement that there had been no intrusion by the Chinese contradicts the press note of the Ministry of External Affairs issued after external affairs minister S. Jaishankar spoke to his Chinese counterpart, state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi.
“[The] Chinese side sought to erect a structure in Galwan valley on our side of the LAC [line of actual control],” the press release dated June 17 said. “While this became a source of dispute, the Chinese side took pre-meditated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties. It reflected an intent to change the facts on ground in violation of all our agreements to not change the status quo.”
It is clear that if the Chinese sought to “erect a structure” on “our side of the LAC”, it would need to cross the de-facto border.
Modi’s assertion also flies in the face of the first statement issued by the MEA on June 16 right after the Galwan incident in which it said the “violent face-off” had “happened as a result of an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there.” (emphasis added).
The MEA’s reference to unilateral attempts to change the status quo at Galwan makes it obvious the territory in question either falls on the Indian side of the LAC or is in an area where Indian and Chinese claim lines overlap.
There are around 23 such ‘areas of differing perception’, or ADPs, along the entire length of the India-China boundary from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east but Galwan has not been one of them. Until now, when China has begun making sovereignty claims over the entire valley. Which is why Modi’s claim that Chinese soldiers had not intruded is being seen by the strategic community as not just wrong but also damaging.
Speaking to The Wire, former national security advisor Shivshankar Menon expressed his puzzlement over the prime minister’s choice of words, calling it “an ill-considered and inaccurate statement that concedes territory and the gains of aggression.” “If this is so”, he added, “why and where were our soldiers killed?”
Also Read: In Talks, China Takes Hard Line, Claims All of Galwan Valley, Chunk of Pangong Tso
Pravin Sawhney, editor of FORCE magazine said India would have to pay “a heavy price for the appeasement of China, and soon…. The Chinese see appeasement as a sign of weakness which they will exploit to the fullest.” Like Menon, he too saw the prime minister’s assertion casting a shadow over the clash at Galwan. “How did 20 unarmed Indian soldiers die?” he asked. “Why were 10 soldiers taken captive by PLA? If no one has intruded into our territory, did India transgress into Chinese territory?”
“I can’t figure out why [Modi] should have done this, contradicting his own army top brass and external affairs minister,” a former Indian diplomat with extensive experience dealing with China told The Wire on condition of anonymity. “There will be a domestic political price to pay no matter how they try and spin it. So there must have been a bigger price to be paid to justify this utterly pathetic climb down. What is that? I can’t believe this was inadvertent.”
Does the prime minister’s assertion that “no one has intruded and nor is anyone intruding” mean the MEA was wrong to accuse the PLA of crossing the LAC and trying to alter the status quo? In turn does this mean that India has now handed over the Galwan valley to the Chinese?
Already, on June 16, the Chinese PLA western theatre command’s spokesperson, while claiming that Indian soldiers had crossed the LAC and “launched provocative attacks” had also asserted Chinese sovereignty over the Galwan valley area.
The region is, of course, named after the Galwan river, which is named after a Ladakhi explorer, Ghulam Rasool Galwan who discovered a route through the region. His descendants still live in Ladakh. There is no Chinese name for the valley, with Chinese statements also using this nomenclature. The Chinese army claim is also controverted by China’s own maps which draw the boundary/LAC hundreds of metres short of the Galwan river’s confluence with the Shyok river, thus rendering a part of the Galwan valley on the Indian side of the LAC.
After the Chinese foreign ministry also reiterated the claim over the entire Galwan valley, the MEA spokesperson described this as “exaggerated and untenable”.
Also Read: ‘Chinese Behaviour Has Been Very Different From Anything in the Past’: Former NSA Shivshankar Menon
The LAC, the de-facto border, between India and China has never been demarcated or delineated. When India attempted to exchange maps for the western sector in 2012, China brought the process to a halt.
However, the Indian and Chinese sides have had a perception of each other’s claim line based on observing decades of patrolling patterns and border meetings. In the areas of different perception (ADP) on the LAC, where the claim lines of the two sides overlap, Chinese and Indian soldiers regularly come face-to-face, before withdrawing back as per an elaborate system of drills.
In Indian official language, when Chinese soldiers come into these ADPs, this is not considered an “intrusion” but a “transgression” of the LAC. The PM’s statement, however, does not use that term for Chinese actions either.
In any case, Galwan had not been part of this list of ADPs, as India had considered the LAC to be settled as per the withdrawal line of the Chinese after the 1962 war.
China now wants India to keep off Galwan estuary
On Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry published a document that makes it clear Beijing’s claim over Galwan has extended beyond their withdrawal points as depicted in Chinese maps from 1962.
A few hours after the all party meeting where Indian PM made the statement no one had intruded into Indian territory, the Chinese embassy’s spokesperson tweeted a link of a publication that gave China’s “Step-by-Step Account of the Galwan Valley Incident”.
It began by stating that “Galwan Valley is located on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control in the west section of the China-India boundary”
Galwan’s strategic important is that its heights have a dominating position over the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie road built by India.
China claims that the since April, India has been building infrastructure in Galwan, which led to “representations and protests on multiple occasions”.
On May 6, Indian troops crossed the LAC by night, China alleged, and impeded patrol movements by “building fortifications and barricades”, which led to the first confrontation. The Chinese foreign ministry’s account states that India agreed to withdraw and demolish its “facilities”.
A month later, the senior commander level meeting on June 6 reached a “consensus”, the Chinese foreign ministry claims, that Indian patrols “would not cross the estuary of the Galwan river”.
Also Read: China’s Galwan Valley Gambit is Attempt to Extend Official Claim Line, LAC Westward
This means that the Chinese have extended their claim upto the confluence of the Galwan and the Shyok rivers, near which India’s road to Daulat Beg Oldie passes.
While India has also repeatedly stressed that the understanding reached at June 6 should be implemented, Indian statements don’t provide further details and stated that the agreement was for a process of de-escalation.
Chinese deployments at Pangong lake
Among the three areas of contention in the ongoing tensions, Pangong Tso lake has always been the most volatile and is also in the list of ADPs.
The Indian claim line crosses ‘Finger 8’, one of the mountainous spurs jutting into the lake, while the Chinese states that the LAC lies at Finger 2. Previously, India has patrolled till Finger 6.
This time, the Chinese came down to ‘Finger 4’, where they scuffled with Indian troops on night of May 10-11. As per satellite images, China has changed the status quo at the Fingers and built “substantial’ structures.
According to Nathan Ruser of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the Chinese have constructed 500 structures, fortified trenches and a new boatshed over 20 kilometres between Fingers 4 and 5.
At Hot Springs, Ruser analyses that satellite imagery from late May shows that there are two dirt tracks that go into “Indian-controlled territory”. “There are no PLA positions on the Indian side of the LAC; however, these tracks suggest that PLA forces are regularly making incursions into Indian territory, at a remote part of the LAC that is 10 kilometres from the nearest Indian positions,” he claims.