India launched major military maneuvers on Monday (4) along the disputed Himalayan border with China. The operations are expected to continue during the G20 summit in New Delhi, scheduled for September 9 and 10. Chinese President Xi Jinping will not be attending the event.
RFI
In all, there will be 11 days of maneuvers near the Himalayan border, which constitute “an annual training exercise” in the northern areas bordering Pakistan and China, an Indian defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Relations between the two Asian powers have suffered escalating tensions since a clash on the disputed border of Ladakh, high in the Himalayas, in June 2020, when 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers were killed.
At the end of August, new tensions arose when Beijing published a map claiming land that New Delhi says belongs to Indian territory. Since then, tens of thousands of soldiers have concentrated on both sides of the Line of Effective Control (LAC), the de facto border between India and China, which is not clearly demarcated.
The “new Chinese map” shows the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin plateau as its official territory. Beijing claims that Arunachal Pradesh, in the eastern Himalayas, is part of southern Tibet and released a map in April renaming 11 places in this state as “Zangnan”, southern Tibet in Chinese. Aksai Chin is a disputed plateau in the western Himalayas, claimed by India but controlled by China.
Rare meeting
In August, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare face-to-face meeting in Johannesburg during the Brics summit, a group made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
At the 18th G20 summit in New Delhi, however, Beijing will be represented by its Chinese prime minister, Li Qiang, in the absence of the Chinese head of state. The information was given by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.
Modi’s government has invested billions of dollars in connectivity projects on its side of the border to strengthen the civilian presence and establish new paramilitary groups in the region.
India is also seeking to develop closer ties with Western countries and, in particular, with the members of the Quad, an alliance that brings together the United States, Japan and Australia, and which aims to counterbalance China’s weight in the Asia-Pacific region.
(With information from AFP)