India
has been facing its toughest military challenge in nearly six decades
after 20 Indian soldiers were reported beaten to death by Chinese troops
in a border clash. Pictured: An Indian army convoy drives towards Leh,
on a highway bordering China, on June 19, 2020 in Gagangir, India.
(Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)
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India has been facing its toughest military challenge in nearly six
decades after 20 Indian soldiers were reported killed by Chinese troops
in a border clash.
The soldiers were beaten to death with "sticks, fists, rocks and
wooden clubs" during a confrontation in the Himalayan region of eastern
Ladakh, Indian
sources said. In keeping with a 1996 bilateral
border agreement between India and China, soldiers are forbidden from firing weapons in the area where the clash occurred.
Chinese troops carried out a "premeditated and planned action that
was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties",
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on June 17.
"Based on what I know, Chinese side also suffered casualties,"
tweeted the editor-in-chief of the Chinese newspaper
Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece.
"Indian intercepts reveal that Chinese side suffered 43 casualties
including dead and seriously injured in the violent face-off," New
Delhi-based
Hindustan Times newspaper
reported that military sources had said..
Beijing, so far, has not confirmed these figures.
The conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers reignited last month after 12,000 Chinese troops
crossed into Indian territory.
In May, China's People's Liberation Army invaded the strategic Galwan
Valley, located near India's northern tip, and occupied over 23 square
miles of territory, Indian media
reported.
"[T]he capture of Galwan river valley provides the PLA strategic
domination over positions overlooking India's Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg
Oldi (DSDBO) road, which connects Leh to the Karakoram Pass," the Indian
news website Print
reported.
In the India-China war of 1962, Chinese troops occupied nearly 15,000
square miles of Indian territory. China still refuses to recognize
large parts of its 2,100 mile-long border with India, and has been
demanding an additional 35,000 square miles of territory in India's northeastern region.
Faced with an invasion of strategic heights and the brutal deaths of
its soldiers, India is under pressure to respond to Chinese aggression.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on June 17 to "firmly protect every
inch of the country's land and its self-respect" in face of Chinese
incursion. "I want to assure the Nation that the sacrifice made by our
soldiers will not go in vain," Modi
said.
"India's integrity and sovereignty is supreme for us, and no one can
stop us from defending it. Nobody should have an iota of doubt about
this."
Chinese aggression comes as India is in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic. The country has
reported around to 12,000 deaths and 366,946 cases of the virus, which first surfaced in
Wuhan, China late last year.
Some western commentators have argued that China's bullying is an
attempt to punish Indian for deepening strategic ties with the United
States. "Chinese troops pushed over the border into India last month
amid border clashes as Beijing looks to slap down Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi over his ever-closer relationship with the United States,"
Britain's
Daily Telegraph wrote on June 12.
Still other commentators ascribe China's stepped-up predations -- on
Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia
-- to a hope that the world is too distracted by the coronavirus
pandemic and the economic devastation it unleashed to bother confronting
China, let alone stop it.
In 2019, India
upgraded
its participation in the US-Australia-India-Japan Consultations ("The
Quad"). This Indo-Pacific alliance offers a counterweight to China's
growing naval and military build-up in the region.
Earlier this month, India and Australia signed a series of defense
agreements boosting naval cooperation between the two countries. A
military logistics agreement, signed as part of a bilateral
"Comprehensive Strategic Partnership", gives the Indian Navy "strategic
access deep into the Indo-Pacific region,"
The Times of India newspaper
reported. The agreement signed on June 4 gives "reciprocal access to each nation's respective military bases," Japan's
The Nikkei added.
Both India and Australia are threatened by China's military build-up.
"We are committed to an open, inclusive, prosperous Indo-Pacific and
India's role in that region, our region, will be critical in the years
ahead," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
said
while endorsing the bilateral strategic partnership. "We share an ocean
and we share responsibilities for that ocean as well," he added.
China's artificial islands in the South China Sea --
equipped with military bases, naval ports and airfields -- pose a strategic threat to neighboring countries. In 2018, China
landed nuclear strike-capable bombers on these artificial islands, sending an alarming message to the U.S. and regional powers.
Beijing's latest military adventure poses a grave threat to world
peace. Both China and India possess significant nuclear arsenals. With a
combined population of more than 2.7 billion, the Asian powers are home
to one third of humanity.
While the U.S. has decreased its nuclear stockpile, China is boosting its arsenal, according to a
report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on June 15. According to the report:
"China is in the middle of a significant modernization of
its nuclear arsenal. It is developing a so-called nuclear triad for the
first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and
nuclear-capable aircraft."
India and Pakistan, China's key regional ally, have also increased
"the size and diversity of their nuclear forces," the reported found.
Despite China's military superiority and economic clout, an armed
conflict with India would not be a walkover. Apart from the India-China
war of 1962, India has not lost a single military conflict.
While India can withstand Chinese military aggression, the Free
World, if it wishes to remain free, seriously needs to stand with the
world's largest democracy. If China is allowed to succeed in its
aggression, it will only embolden the Communists in Beijing to redraw
borders, dictate terms to other countries in the region, and press on
with its plan to dominate the world.