Playing Chinese Checker

PLA’s big aim at LAC is to get India to accept China’s hegemony. We must see this & prepare.

- Gautam Bambawale

It has been just over two years since Galwan. Since then, India-China relations have deteriorated significantly and continue to remain at a low ebb.

Galwan is very different from face-offs between the Indian Army and People’s Liberation Army at Depsang in 2013; Chumar in 2014 and Doklam in 2017. After those clashes, India-China relations reverted to their earlier trajectory. But what has occurred in eastern Ladakh since the summer of 2020 and continues till date is a different kettle of fish from these earlier incidents 

Those earlier face-offs were accidental in nature, in Galwan the Chinese side has undertaken the operation in a planned, pre-determined, well thought out way.

The number of troops involved on both sides is much higher than in the earlier cases. This time around there are roughly two divisions or anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000 troops brought to LAC – first by China and then in a matching build-up, by India.

By bringing such large military strength to the India-China border areas, PLA has violated all preceding agreements.

The first part or chapeau paragraph of all these agreements states that neither side will mass troops near LAC without notifying the other side.

So, by bringing in two divisions to eastern Ladakh, China has shredded those agreements to bits.