India-China tensions escalate after rare public clash between border chiefs - The Independent

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Indian and Chinese troops have faced off along a disputed eastern border, a revelation that has raised fresh concerns about the fragile truce between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

The chief of India's border police acknowledged that “a face-off happened at several locations” along the frontier in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh that Beijing claims as part of southern Tibet.

India and China have been engaged in years of painstaking diplomatic and military-level negotiations to ease tensions following deadly border clashes in 2020.

The border police chief’s remarks this week represent the first official confirmation of a border flash-point first reported by The Independent last month. We reported earlier that an expanding Chinese military presence in high-altitude regions of Upper Subansiri in Arunachal Pradesh had led to Indian villagers being denied access to traditional grazing grounds and areas they had frequented for generations.

The report cited exclusive satellite images and testimonies from border residents, fact-finding teams, and politicians who raised concerns over heightened tensions and a flurry of Chinese activity, claims which the Indian Army had denied at the time.

The latest comments were made by Shatrujeet Singh Kapur, director general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), who said the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops began in July.

“In the past few days, a situation arose where face-offs happened at several locations in Arunachal, and it still continues,” he said at a recent gathering of officers in Rajasthan state.

Mr Kapur, who is due to retire on 31 October, said the weapons used by ITBP are 50 years old and are in urgent need of modernisation.

It may not be possible for India to compete with China through traditional methods, he warned, given Beijing has invested extensively in the modernisation of its weapons and infrastructure.

“Drones are something through which even a small country can challenge a big country. We saw how Ukraine has challenged a superpower like Russia. The war was supposed to be over in a few days, but 10,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers are being killed, they are suffering. Look at Iran, how, without even a Navy, they, with the help of drones, challenged America,” he said.

India and China share a disputed 3,440km (2,100-mile) boundary known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). This de facto border runs through remote and inaccessible natural paths along the Himalayas, passing through rivers, remote mountains and forest cover. It is ill-defined and its demarcations have remained a source of contention between two neighbours who fought a major war in 1962, in which India suffered a humiliating defeat.

The two neighbours saw the last major escalation in June 2020, when Indian and Chinese troops came face to face in Ladakh and troops fought a bloody clash in Galwan Valley in 2020 that killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.

Beijing and New Delhi have since de-escalated after several rounds of talks and the two sides reached an eight-point consensus in 2024 and continue to hold senior military commander-level meetings.

Satellite imagery obtained by The Independent last month showed new Chinese infrastructure along and near the disputed frontier, including roads, buildings, cleared areas and helipads.

The fact finding missions that travelled to the border villages to investigate claims said Chinese troops have advanced into Indian-claimed territory around Taksing, Gelemo and Maza in Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Subansiri district.

Villagers and tribes claim they were losing access to ancestral lands, including traditional yak-grazing grounds, hunting areas and forests used for generations.

The face-off mentioned by Mr Kapur was reported in Asaphila near Taksing in late July between Indian and Chinese troops.

The two sides withdrew after the confrontation, but soon the Chinese army returned in larger numbers and pitched tents at an elevation, within 6km to 7km of India’s perception of the LAC.

The opposition Congress party has sharply criticised the Modi government for silence.

“The prime minister and his entire apparatus remain silent on this grave issue,” senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on X.

“India is still paying the price for the prime minister's infamous clean chit to China on June 19, 2020. After the martyrdom of our 20 brave soldiers. The Prime Minister had stated: "No one has entered our border there, nor is anyone present inside, nor has any of our posts been captured by anyone else,” he said, referring to the 2020 Galwan clash.

Congress president Mallikargun Khagre said the revelation was “deeply alarming” and asked, “why is the nation being kept in the dark?”

"The situation in the border areas gets disturbed from time to time when Chinese forces diverge from established patrolling patterns," India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response.

He said both countries were involved in military and diplomatic talks to address outstanding issues, but gave no further details.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said China had "consistently and strictly adhered to relevant agreements" that have been reached with India and it conducted "normal patrol and management activities in the border areas to safeguard territorial sovereignty".

Experts say the remarks offer a rare but serious insight into the issue of Chinese transgressions on the border.

“This happens regularly, even when both sides say they have stability on the border. The number of transgressions varies between 380 and 430 every year. That is almost one incident a day, and what the ITBP chief mentioned is one of those incidents,” Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, said.

He explained that border transgressions can be either accidental, due to differing perceptions of the undefined LAC or deliberate, when one side attempts to assert control over disputed territory.

Such encounters can lead to confrontations between troops and potentially escalate into deadly clashes, as happened in Galwan in 2020.