India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said Thursday (Sept. 17) that his government wants a peaceful resolution to its border dispute with China, but is prepared for any eventuality to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Singh called on Beijing to implement the recent understanding reached to disengage their troops. Singh said, “We can start a war, but how it ends is out of our control.”
The military standoff between China and India is now in its fifth month, with both sides deploying heavy forces in the strategically cold, desert region of Ladakh, adjacent to Tibet.
Both sides have accused each other of provoking the worst confrontation in decades and have called on the other to withdraw its troops.
Addressing the lower house of parliament on Thursday, Singh said China had violated bilateral agreements by amassing troops and weapons along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayas. He accused the Chinese military of not allowing Indian troops to patrol in the traditional sector.
Singh said that India deployed its troops to counter the Chinese military build-up and thwarted the Chinese incursion. The border between the two countries is not clearly demarcated. Minister Singh said that Beijing is trying to unilaterally change the status quo on the border. He said, “Respect and strict adherence to the Line of Actual Control is the basis for peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
Beijing has accused New Delhi of being responsible for the standoff. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular press conference on Wednesday that “the responsibility for the recent developments on the Sino-Indian border does not lie on the Chinese side.” He accused India of first violating bilateral agreements by crossing the border and firing shots, threatening the security of Chinese border guards.
Wang Wenbin said, “It is imperative that the Indian side should immediately correct its wrongdoing, disengage on the spot as soon as possible, and take practical actions to promote the easing and cooling of the border situation.”
China and India’s foreign ministers agreed to disengage their troops to cool tensions when they met in Moscow a week ago.
But the two sides did not specify how they plan to implement the agreement. As the situation in the border region remains volatile, the Indian military is prepared to keep troops in the mountains above 4,500 meters above sea level throughout the winter.
Singh said India has doubled funding for construction of border roads in recent years in response to Beijing’s rapid infrastructure development on the other side of the border.
Mountain roads are key to supplying troops. Indian troops have been transporting food, fuel and ammunition to the Ladakh region in recent weeks in preparation for a snowy winter.
China and India fought a war in 1962, and the border dispute has remained unresolved ever since, but economic relations between the two countries have grown rapidly in recent decades, and the border issue has been on the back burner for decades. However, the recent confrontation has renewed high tensions between the two countries.
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