Existing LAC pacts favour China: Arunachal Governor

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, May 17

Four years since the military standoff with China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, Lt Gen KT Parnaik (retd), Arunachal Pradesh Governor, today said the existing “peace and tranquility” agreements on protocols for troops at the LAC favoured the Chinese.

“It is time the Ministry and External Affairs and the Ministry of Defence Affairs entered new agreements with Beijing,” said Lt Gen Parnaik, who was the Northern Army Commander from January 2011 to June 2013. He was delivering the keynote address of the second Lt Gen PS Bhagat Memorial Lecture here.

Lieutenant General Bhagat (1918-1975) co-authored the Henderson Brooks report on the 1962 India-China war.

Lt Gen Parnaik said, “The existing agreements on the LAC suit the People’s Liberation Army. We are guarding an invisible line. There are frequent violations of agreement. The MoD and MEA need to be ready with a new set of agreements.”

“India needs to counter the Chinese claims of its dynasties having ruled some parts at some point in history,” he said.

In the past, India has officially blamed China for breaching agreements and causing the resultant military standoff along the LAC.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had made a statement in the Lok Sabha in 2020 that “Chinese actions reflect a disregard for our various bilateral agreements”. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had in 2023 said, “Chinese side violated border management agreements in 2020 by moving large numbers of troops to the frontier.”

The amassing of troops by China goes against the 1993 and 1996 agreements. Respecting and strictly observing the LAC was the basis for peace and tranquility in border areas and it was explicitly recognised in both the agreements.

The agreements have procedures and norms to deal with the situation of face-offs. However, in recent violent confrontations, the conduct of Chinese forces has been in complete violation of all mutually agreed upon norms.