INDO-CHINA BORDER TIFF : INDIA ASKS CHINA TO REVERT TO STATUS QUO
• Ministry of External Affairs sees it as a face-to face situation• China seeks to play down tensions
• It says both countries need to work on improving bilateral ties
India on April 23, 2013 asked China to restore status quo at the Daulat Beg Oldi sector in Ladakh where troops of both countries came 'face-to-face' after Chinese troops intruded 10 km inside Indian territory on April 15, 2013.
"We have asked the Chinese side to maintain the status quo in this sector (of the western border). By this I mean the status quo prior to this incident", external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
"We see this as a face-to-face situation between border personnel of two sides due to
differences on the alignment of Line of Actual Control (LAC)".
The term 'face-to-face' is not something that India has 'conjured up', it is something that is referred to in 2005 Protocol for implementation of confidence-building measures in military
field in the LAC in India-China border areas, he said. More than 200 incursions (the government refers to them as transgressions) are reported every year in the Ladakh sector, Arunachal
Pradesh and Sikkim along the disputed border.
In Beijing, a day after denying its People's Liberation Army had intruded into India, China seemingly toned down the rhetoric.
China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said both countries needed to "create good conditions for the sound development of bilateral relations." Hua, who had described reports of the intrusion as media speculation, evaded direct questions.
Asked about the external affairs ministry summoning Chinese ambassador to New Delhi Wei Wei to stress the need for resolving the issue, Hua said she was not aware of the development.
600 INCURSIONS BY CHINA ALONG LAC SINCE 2010
China's 'deeper' troop incursions into Ladakh have set the alarm bells clanging in the Indian security establishment, even as Defence Minister A. K. Antony on April 22 asserted that all necessary steps would be taken "to protect the country's interests" in the continuing face-off between rival soldiers in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector. India has recorded well over 600 'transgressions'-the government's euphemism for cross-border intrusions-all along the unresolved 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) by the People's Liberation Army over the last three years. While the sheer number of the incidents itself is disquieting, the Indian establislunent is
more worried about the 'brazen military assertiveness' being shown by the PLA in all the three sectors of the LAC-western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim,
Arunachal)-in recent times. "Ladakh in particular-in DBO and Nyoma sectors as well as Trig Heights and Pangong Tso lake-is being targeted. Though Chinese troops usually go back after
marking their presence, they are increasingly coming deeper and deeper into our territory with the aim to stake claim to disputed areas," said an official.
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