THE NEW LAC CRISES: TAWANG

HOURS AFTER Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament that “PLA troops tried to transgress the LAC in Yangtse area of Tawang Sector and unilaterally change the status quo”, the PLA claimed that the clash in the early hours of December 9 took place after Chinese troops on regular patrol on their side of the Line of Actual Control(LAC) in the “Dongzhang” area were blocked by Indian soldiers who had “illegally crossed the line”.

Tawang: Site of clash

Soldiers of the two sides clashed in an area called Yangtse, in the upper reaches of Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh. Tawang, indeed nearly all of Arunachal, is claimed by China. It is one of the more serious dispute points between India and china in the overall border question.

The December 9 incident is the most serious encounter between the two sides in recent years in this sector, and the first one resulting in injuries since the Galwan clash, in which 20 soldiers on the Indian side and an unspecified number of Chinese troops lost their lives.

Context of a new crisis

According to Brigadier Rahul Bhonsle(retd), who runs the online security analyses site Security Risks Asia, the PLA’s motivation for creating a new crisis along the disputed border, this time in the east, “appears to be to extend the points of confrontation and keep the issue of India China border alive at a time when the world is engaged in over-coming multiple crises emanating from the War in Ukraine”.

Over the last two years, the deployment of troops in the forward areas of the LAC at Ladakh has become a permanent feature. The Chinese activation in the eastern sector is to be viewed against this backdrop of military tensions and serves to divide the attention of India’s security planners as it deals with new situations.

More reason for mistrust

The incident is certain to add a fresh layer of mistrust in India’s perception of China’s intentions.

New Delhi believes that the Chinese actions in Ladakh were tantamount to the tearing of painstakingly negotiated border agreements, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India-China relations cannot be normalized without peace and tranquility on the border.