Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 3

With all existing peace agreements on managing the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China having been breached, whatever little sanctity attached to the un-demarcated boundary is under serious threat.

Breach of agreements

• Don’t confront patrols in disputed areas, show a banner and retreat

Reality: Troops of both sides are now within rifle-shot range of each other

• Don’t tail patrols

Reality: Both sides have had casualties in clashes

• Control over aircraft flying

Reality: LAC seeing unprecedented activity by copters, fighter jets

• Resolve local issues at border meeting points

Reality: Till now, no impact of border meetings

Since 1993, there have been a series of peace agreements which maintained the LAC sanctity, but all of them have been violated by China over the past four months.

Military-level talks have so far ended in deadlock and armies of both nuclear-armed countries are making pre-emptive moves across the 826-km frontier in Ladakh. The Indian assessment is clear — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China is

trying to alter the status of the LAC and is not open to reasoning. India’s plan for the short term is restoration of the April status quo ante while its long-term strategy demands demarcating the LAC on ground.

Since May this year, the PLA has been making a westward push to capture more territory. The PLA first prevented Indian patrols in ‘grey areas’ – the points where the perception of the LAC varies and both have been making claims and counter-claims.

“The situation is by far more serious than that in 1962,” said a functionary referring to the India-China war that year. This time, forces on either side are backed by latest technology such as satellite imagery, UAVs, long-range guns, missile launchers, fighter jets and radars.

After months of negotiations having yielded nothing, the PLA made another westward movement on August 29-30 night. The Indian Army quickly rushed to occupy mountain tops along a 70-km stretch on the southern bank of Pangong Tso, a 135-km glacial lake. The PLA had done the same on the northern bank of the lake when it prevented Indian movement east of Finger-4, a mountain ridge.

The LAC is at present not demarcated, but is assessed by the area under the control of troops of each country.

China has been rejecting every proposal to define the boundary in the last 174 years, or since 1846.

The British made five different proposals to define the boundary in 1846-47, 1865, 1873, 1899 and 1914, but China rejected all of them.

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested demarcation of the LAC. China wanted special representatives (National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi) to resolve the issue. The talks are going on.