Sputnik News – June 17, 2020
New Delhi (Sputnik): The violent skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops on Monday night, which resulted in dozens of casualties on both sides, were billed as the worst flare-up at the border since the two armies clashed in 1962.
Since Tuesday, Beijing and New Delhi have repeatedly accused each other of provoking clashes at the Line of Actual Control, where at least 20 Indian troops were killed on Monday night, but agreed to de-escalate tensions as soon as possible on Wednesday.
Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, a distinguished fellow at the private think-tank the Observer Research Foundation, felt the developments could not have resulted from a field-level flare-up between the two armies.
“They have been doing it with all their neighbours from the beginning of the year. You have seen the Chinese going in a very, very aggressive fashion with Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and to some extent Vietnam – sinking of Vietnamese fishing vessels and on the eastern side with Taiwan and we are the last one”, said Rajeshwarai.
Media reports from Beijing also indicated that the Chinese military recently conducted joint exercises “aimed at destruction of key hostile hubs in a high-elevation mountainous region”, the Chinese Army’s Tibet Military Command revealed on Tuesday (16 June). The exercises involved combat forces, special operative forces, army aviation troops, electronic countermeasure forces, engineering and anti-chemical warfare troops, long-range artillery systems, and ground-to-air missile systems.