India, China commanders again talk to end border standoff

An Indian army convoy moves on the Srinagar- Ladakh highway at Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. India’s defense minister said Thursday, Sept. 17, the country faces challenges in its border dispute with China and urged Beijing to sincerely implement an understanding they reached previously to completely disengage forces in the Ladakh region. Rajnath Singh said in a statement in the upper house of Parliament that China has amassed troops and armaments in Ladakh in violation of bilateral agreements reached in 1990s and it was creating friction by trying unilaterally to alter the status quo in the region through aggressive postures. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin)

SRINAGAR, India — Senior Indian and Chinese military commanders are holding talks Monday to find ways to resolve a monthslong tense standoff between the rival soldiers along their disputed mountain border in the mountainous Ladakh region.

Details of the talks, which are happening on the Chinese side in Moldo area facing the Indian-controlled Ladakh region, weren’t immediately disclosed. A senior Indian foreign ministry official was also participating in the meeting, said an Indian official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.

Despite several rounds of talks at military, diplomatic, and political levels, including negotiations between foreign and defense ministers of the two countries in Moscow this month, the border tensions have persisted.

Both India and China have provided little information, but media in the two countries have given extensive coverage to the escalating tensions which have dramatically changed their bilateral relations.

The standoff in Ladakh escalated in June to their deadliest clash in decades — a clash on a high ridge between soldiers using clubs, stones, and their fists. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed. China is believed to have also suffered casualties but has not given any details.

In recent weeks, the Asian giants have accused each other of sending soldiers into the other’s territory and firing warning shots for the first time in 45 years, raising the specter of full-scale military conflict.
Relations between the two countries have often been strained, partly due to their undemarcated border.

They fought a border war in 1962 that spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce. Since then, troops have guarded the undefined border areas stretching from Ladakh to India’s northeastern Arunachal Pradesh state, occasionally brawling. They have agreed not to attack each other with firearms.

Both have accused each other of instigating the violence and pledged to safeguard their territory.