After Ladakh, Dragon encroaches at Naku La

Another round of skirmishes were observed between the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian troops on the Line of Actual Control, this time miles away from Ladakh at Naku La in Sikkim. The PLA once again attempted to intrude inside the Indian territory. The Indian Army troops foiled the intrusion and physical clashes ensued, in which soldiers from both sides were reported to be injured.

However, no casualties were reported or fire exchanged. The clashes came just days before the ninth round of military talks between India and China. The marathon Corps Commander-level talks went on for nearly 16 hours and focussed on disengagement of troops from all friction points in eastern Ladakh on the 24th of January, 2021.

Why is the Line of Actual Control (LAC) Disputed ?

The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a notional demarcation line that separates the Indian controlled territory from Chinese controlled territory in the Sino-Indian border dispute. The term "line of actual control" is said to have been used by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in a 1959 note to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nehru refused to recognise the line of control: "There is no sense or meaning in the Chinese offer to withdraw twenty kilometers from what they call 'line of actual control'. What is this 'line of control'? Is this the line they have created by aggression since the beginning of September ? Advancing forty or sixty kilometers by blatant military aggression and offering to withdraw twenty kilometers provided both sides do this is a deceptive device which can fool nobody."

Zhou responded that the LAC was "basically still the line of actual control as existed between the Chinese and Indian sides on 7 November 1959. To put it concretely, in the eastern sector it coincides in the main with the so called McMahon Line, and in the western and middle sectors it coincides in the main with the traditional customary line which has consistently been pointed out by China."

The 1996 Sino-Indian agreement states, "No activities of either side shall overstep the line of actual control." However clause number 6 of the 1993 Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India China Border Areas states: "The two sides agree that references to the line of actual control in this Agreement do not prejudice their respective positions on the boundary question".

The Indian government claims that Chinese troops continue to illegally enter the area hundreds of times every year. In 2013, there was a three-week standoff which popularly came to be known as the 2013 Daulat Beg Oldi incident and inspite of a border defence cooperation agreement signed between Indian and China in 2013, to ensure that patrolling along the LAC does not escalate into armed conflict, incidents continue to take place, the most recent being the Galwan incident.
Naku La is situated at the LAC which makes it a preferred point of intrusion.

Beijing's expansionist initiatives are no new to the global world. Very recently, merely three days after the swearing in of Joe Biden as the President of the United States, 13 Chinese warplanes intruded into the Taiwan’s southwest air defence identification zone.

While the Indian Army official statement to Naku La said that it was a minor face-off, reports from the ground indicate that the PLA is in an aggressive mode on the border with India in Sikkim as well as Bhutan. Following the intrusion on the Taiwanese air space, the US sent its Nimitz class Theodore Roosevelt carrier group into the South China Sea.

Beijing needs to check its exapnsionist policies or else there exists a looming danger of the region of South-East Asia being pushed into a conflict zone. The assertion of territorial claims, open support of anti-Indian fringe groups in the UN, policies on Taiwan & Hong Kong and the recent refusal to disclose information on the coronavirus has put China in a bad light. The dragon needs to be checked and corrected or else a conflict seems certain in the upcoming years.

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January 29, 2021

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