LAC disputes bigger than Doklam

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 26

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold an “informal summit” at Wuhan on Friday, the 150-year British-era boundary dispute — at the core of tensions between the two neighbours — will surely play out.

Disputes over the alignment of the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto boundary between India and China, are much bigger in scale than Doklam, located on the edge of south-eastern Sikkim, which witnessed a 73-day military standoff in June last year. Either side of the Himalayan divide is now militarised with thousands of gun-toting soldiers, pre-positioned tanks, missiles and fully equipped air bases.

As of now, 14 core disputes remain along the LAC, all due to British cartography dictated by fluctuations of its “forward policy” of 1800s. PM Modi and President Xi will need to move out of the chessboard of disputes.

Since May 2014, the two leaders have met 11 times (including a brief meeting at Hamburg on July 7). PM Modi, in September 2014, suggested demarcation of the LAC on ground, but China was less enthusiastic. The LAC is not marked on the ground and it largely runs along the east-west axis, in contiguity with the Himalayan ridgeline.

India and China fought a war in 1962. The two had an armed skirmish in 1967 at Nathu La and an eight-month standoff at Sumdrong Chu in north-western Arunachal Pradesh in 1986.

On February 2, Minister for State for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha that Chinese troops were involved in 426 transgressions along the LAC during 2017 — a huge jump from 273 transgressions in 2016.

Eastern Ladakh tangle

India has militarily “tailored” eastern Ladakh, which shares a 826-km frontier with China, to include real-time updates on Chinese; countering patrols along the LAC with own patrols; maintaining a minimum level of firepower and future stationing of fighter jets at Leh — the key air base in Ladakh.

The Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) conduct joint patrols along the LAC at 65 designated points. China in 1960 bizarrely expanded its claim on another 5,100 sq km of territory in eastern Ladakh. In March last year, Beijing made another bizarre suggestion asking India to cede its own territory in Tawang tract in Arunachal and also in eastern Ladakh. An option for India is to agree to demarcate the LAC, possibly along the Macartney-MacDonald line proposed by the British in 1899 or the 1873 line proposed by the British Foreign Office.

Conversely China also fears India’s intentions at interdicting the Aksai Chin G-219 highway — the only road access from Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province to Tibet.