'Himalayan flashpoint could spiral out of control': How international media view India-China face-off

India lost 20 soldiers during the violent face-off with Chinese troops on Monday along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

It was the worst violent incident between the countries in decades.

The tension has raised alarms across the globe and international media outlets have covered the incident in detail.

Onmanorama brings you an assortment of reports and opinion pieces on the incident from various international media outlets.

In The Guardian, Julian Borger opines that Himalayan flashpoint could spiral out of control.

Key points:

The deadly clash happened at a time and a place where officers from both sides were trying to negotiate a disengagement of forces. Neither government wants this to escalate but the fact that there has been significant loss of life, at least on the Indian side, makes the situation much harder to defuse.

India and China have their first deadly clashes in 45 years, reports The Economist

Key points:

Though India and China have been rivals for a half-century—the PLA thumped India’s army in a brief border war in 1962—their rivalry has grown more intense over the past decade. The border has turned stormier, with Chinese incursions in Ladakh occurring in 2013 and 2014, and a 73-day stand-off on the edge of Bhutan in 2017. Last year China was irked by India's decision to revoke the constitutional autonomy of Jammu & Kashmir and carve out Ladakh into a separate territory, ruled directly from Delhi. Indian officials also ramped up rhetoric on retaking the entirety of the old princely state—including a sliver handed to China by Pakistan in 1963. India is anxious over China’s growing economic and political clout on India’s periphery—in Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—and over the influx of Chinese warships into the Indian Ocean.

In response, successive Indian governments have tilted closer to America, with which India signed a $3.5bn arms deal in February, and China’s rivals in Asia, such as Vietnam. A quartet of China-sceptic countries known as the “Quad”, comprising America, Australia, India and Japan, now meet regularly. Though India is at pains to stress that the Quad is not an alliance, Australia may soon join naval exercises involving the other three countries, lending a naval dimension to the group.

Worst clash in decades on disputed India-China border kills 20 Indian troops, reports New York Times

Key points:

Both countries and their nationalist leaders, President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, have taken increasingly assertive postures that pose real risks of the conflict spinning out of control.

It’s not clear what India can do now. Mr. Modi and his Hindu nationalist party have pursued a forceful foreign policy that emphasizes India’s growing role in the world and last year, after a devastating suicide attack that India blamed on a Pakistani terror group, Mr. Modi ordered airstrikes on Pakistan, bringing the two countries to the brink of war.

But India is in no shape to risk a war against China — especially now, as it slips deeper into the economic and health crisis caused by the coronavirus, which has cost the country more than 100 million jobs.

An extraordinary escalation 'with rocks and clubs', writes Soutik Biswas on BBC

Key points:

The two nuclear armed neighbours have a chequered history of face-offs and overlapping territorial claims along the more than 3,440km (2,100 mile), poorly drawn Line of Actual Control (LAC) separating the two sides. Border patrols have often bumped into each other, resulting in occasional scuffles. But no bullets have been fired in four decades. That is why the latest clash, following months of roiling tension, has taken many by surprise.

India needs to rid two misjudgments on border situation, warns the editorial in pro-government Chinese newspaper Global Times

Key points

The arrogance and recklessness of the Indian side is the main reason for the consistent tensions along China-India borders. In recent years, New Delhi has adopted a tough stance on border issues, which is mainly resulted from two misjudgments. It believes that China does not want to sour ties with India because of increasing strategic pressure from the US, therefore China lacks the will to hit back provocations from the Indian side. In addition, some Indian people mistakenly believe their country's military is more powerful than China's. These misperceptions affect the rationality of Indian opinion and add pressure to India's China policy.

The US has wooed India with its Indo-Pacific Strategy, which adds to the abovementioned misjudgment of some Indian elite. In 2017 when Indian troops crossed the line and entered the Doklam area to openly challenge China's territorial sovereignty, their craze was caused by such arrogance. Such an aggressive posture has won praise from the Indian public, which means that the Indian elite's mentality toward China is unhealthy and dangerous.

A perilous stand-off to avoid, writes Jawed Naqvi in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper

Key points

The current stand-off between India and China seems to have less to do with their border dispute, which stands as a dispute. The more informed Indian analysts do not see it as China’s land grab at all. China sought India as a critical partner in its Belt and Road Initiative, which would directly link it to Central Asia, a great alternative to the circuitous Iran port route through Afghanistan. The Chinese were, however, listening to the debate in the Indian parliament over the annexation of Jammu & Kashmir last year. The home minister said Aksai Chin was part of India. And there’s never a day when this or that TV channel doesn’t speak of capturing Gilgit-Baltistan from Pakistan, critical to China.