(This was originally published in TNN)
NEW DELHI: Union minister Gen (retd) V K’s Singh remark that India has crossed LAC more often than China turned into a convenient stick for Beijing to attack India with on Monday as it described India’s alleged transgressions as the root cause of the current border tensions. In response to a question, which the Chinese foreign ministry claimed was raised after the daily press conference, spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Singh’s remarks were an “unwitting confession” by the Indian side.
Both sides have blamed each other for the 10-month-old military stand-off with the government has held all along, and as it informed Parliament last week, that the Chinese since April/May last year have made several attempts to unilaterally change the status quo along the LAC in the western sector. India continues to maintain that the Indian troops are fully familiar with the LAC alignment and, as the ministry of external affairs has said earlier, abide by it scrupulously.
The Chinese seemed to make full use of the opportunity as the spokesperson said that, for a long time, the Indian side had conducted “frequent acts of trespass” in the border area in an attempt to encroach on China’s territory and “constantly created disputes and frictions, which is the root cause of the tensions at the China-India border”. “We urge the Indian side to follow through on the consensus, agreements, and treaties it reached with China, and uphold peace and stability in the border region with concrete actions,” added Wang.
Speaking in Madurai, Singh had made the remarks attributed to him while emphasizing that the border with China remained undemarcated. “Let me assure you, if China has transgressed 10 times, we must have done it at least 50 times,” he was quoted as saying. Although tensions have eased on the ground, there has been little progress in the many rounds of diplomatic and military talks for disengagement and de-escalation along the border. According to the government, while the Indian forces have responded appropriately to Chinese adventurism, it has also been conveyed to Beijing that China’s unilateral actions that disturbed peace along the LAC are unacceptable.
While the MEA remained silent on the issue, Singh drew flak for his remarks also on social media with strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney saying that it will only provide grist to China’s propaganda mill. “In the absence of a credible Indian military option to evict Chinese forces from the key strategic heights they occupied last April in a stealth operation that caught India napping, such bravado reflects continuing efforts to obfuscate the loss of areas,” he posted on Twitter.
