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The foreign ministers of the two countries issued a five-point sentence aimed at ending a simmering confrontation. A past engagement was followed up to the deadliest surprise in decades.
By Steven Lee Myers and Sameer Yasir
China and India have pledged to ease tensions along their disputed border with the Himalayas, days after officials from either country accused the government of firing shots in the region for the first time in decades.
An earlier promise to take a step back from a wider military confrontation in June failed to end a months-long confrontation. Churches continued as troops on both sides rushed into forbidden mountainous territory along a 2,000-mile border component.
“As two primary neighboring powers, it is common for there to be disagreements between China and India,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a statement released in Beijing on Friday, “but those disagreements will have to be well situated in the bilateral relations “.
“The key is the strategic consensus of leaders in either country that China and India are not competitors, but cooperative partners,” he said.
Wang met with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, on the sidelines of a regional security summit in Moscow on Thursday and issued a five-point promise to “continue the discussion to disconnect as temporarily as possible, maintaining the obligatory distance and improving the situation. “stage on the ground. “
The call on the defence forces of both countries to comply with long-standing agreements on army patrols along the border, adding a ban on the use of firearms and the opening of communication channels. “The scenario in border spaces is not in the interest of e-parties,” he said.
The communiqué, however, did not address the underlying differences that have fueled tensions this year, adding where the border, known as the royal line, is located.
In India, officials and analysts warned that China must consolidate its slow territorial gains and create a new prestige quo. China has denied that it has crossed the effective line of control.
Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi Policy Research Center, said there is nothing new in the statement, as in the commitment announced in June, which responded directly to India’s accusations that China had seized a new territory.
“The lesson learned from the collapse of the agreement is that China is in a position to defuse tensions if India accepts the new facts on the ground,” he said.
Clashes began in May after India accused Infantrymen of the People’s Liberation Army of crossing the de facto border into the Ladakh region, bordering Tibet. China, in turn, has accused India of building roads and defensive structures that threaten the prestige quo in the region, which is the scene of a bloody war in 1962.
In June, a fight broke out in a gorge called Galwan Valley, with infantrymen fighting melee or with makeshift sticks. The fighting killed 20 Indian infantrymen and several Chinese, Beijing officials did not reveal an official recount. In August, a soldier belonging to a secret Tibetan refugee force working with the Indian army died after walking on a landmine along the border.
Both sides rushed to send reinforcements, supported by artillery, tanks, fighter jets and helicopters. In recent days, the Indian army has deployed thousands of troops to places where they had never been sent before; Local volunteers helped come and go from food supplies, walking for miles to new army outposts.
The two countries have also released photographs and videos showing clashes along the border that help their respective versions of events, it is difficult to independently determine the accusations given the remoteness of the region.
The most recent confrontation took place on Monday in the Chushul area, not far from Pangong Lake, which is divided across the royal control line and has been the scene of clashes. of concern about emerging tensions given long-standing agreements to prevent the two armies from going to war. No aggressive shots have been fired at the border since four Indian infantrymen were killed in a clash in 1975.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang pressed for border tensions not to disrupt broader relations between the two countries, which until this year had improved. However, the split in India sparked a wave of anti-China protests and boycotts of products made in China, adding many cell phone applications.
Clashes have stoked nationalist sentiment in China.
China has acted aggressively this year to assert sovereignty on several other fronts as well, at a time when the world remains affected by the coronavirus pandemic and with the United States it has seriously deteriorated before the November presidential election.
The Trump administration has challenged China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea more explicitly than before and has more deeply singled out Taiwan, the democratic island China claims.
On Thursday, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry complained that Chinese army aircraft had violated the island’s airspace for two consecutive days, which was considered the ultimate serious provocation since China launched missiles into the Taiwan Strait in 1996.
“The chinese government’s military’s action has been a serious provocation against Taiwan and a serious risk to regional security and stability,” he said.
Steven Lee Myers ed from Seoul, South Korea; and Sameer Yasir of Srinagar, Kashmir. Chris Buckley contributed to Sydney, Australia; and Amy Chang Dog from Taipei, Taiwan.
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