China-India border impasse enters sixth week
By
Keith Jones
22 July 2017
The Chinese government is sending strong signals to India that it must unilaterally withdraw its troops from a Himalayan ridge claimed by both China and Bhutan or face a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations, even war.
More than five weeks ago, Indian troops interceded on the Doklam or Donglang Plateau to prevent Chinese construction workers from expanding a road in the disputed area. Since then, Beijing and New Delhi have exchanged bellicose threats and taunts and rushed thousands of troops to the remote region where the borders of China, India, and Bhutan intersect.
Beijing, according to Tuesday’s Indian Express, briefed foreign diplomats late last week and emphasized that India’s intervention against China—on territory New Delhi does not even claim to be its own—is unprecedented; that there can be no substantive talks until the Indian troops withdraw; and that China’s patience is being sorely tested.
“Our colleagues,” said a diplomat only identified by the Express as from one of the five permanent UN Security Council states, “attended the briefing and were given the impression that the Chinese side will not be waiting for an indefinite period. This is quite worrying, and we have conveyed it to our Indian colleagues in Beijing and Bhutanese colleagues in Delhi.”
Initially Beijing refused comment on the Indian Express report. Later Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang conceded China had made its views on the border dispute known to other countries, saying “Some foreign diplomats in China, feeling shocked and confounded, reached us for facts through diplomatic channels.”
With the obvious intent of underlining the warnings Beijing has made in private, the PLA Daily, the…