By Ankit Panda
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is known for his soft-spoken manner and propensity for understatement. One recent example is his observation, made ahead of his visit to China this week, that “India and China have historical issues and there are areas of concern.”
Among the historical issues Singh was referring to are the three major military incidents between China and India: the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the 1967 Chola Incident, and a 1987 skirmish. In 2013, the two came close to adding a fourth to this list when a PLA platoon was found to have set up camp 30 km south of Daulat Beg Oldi, in Ladakh, near Aksai Chin. Aksai Chin is perceived by India as an inextricable part of Jammu and Kashmir, and by China as a strategically vital bridge between Xinjiang and Tibet.
China and India had signed agreements in the 1990s to establish a modus vivendi on the border in the form of the Line of Actual Control (LoAC). The 1993 agreement included a statement that "No activities of either side shall overstep the line of actual control.” Since then, India has claimed that Chinese troops have conducted several hundred illegal patrols south of the LoAC every year, but because the PLA troops have always eventually withdrawn to the Chinese side of the LoAC, a major bilateral crisis has been averted.
Read the full story at The Diplomat