Indian and Chinese military commanders met yesterday to try to ease tensions at their disputed Himalayan border as the public mood hardened in India for a military and economic riposte following the worst clash in more than five decades.
Major Indian traders called for a boycott of Chinese goods and the government of Maharashtra put three initial investment proposals from Chinese companies worth Rs50bn ($658mn) on hold, just days after signing the agreements.
India said 20 of its soldiers were killed in a clash last Monday with Chinese troops in a major escalation of a weeks-long standoff between the nuclear-armed Asian giants in the western Himalayas.
An government source said commanders met in Moldo, on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border dividing India’s Ladakh region from the Chinese-held Aksai Chin.
The meeting lasted several hours, with the Indian side pushing China to withdraw its troops back to where they were in April, a second Indian government source said.
China, in previous rounds of talks, had asked India to stop all construction work in what it says is Chinese territory.
Soldiers fought with rocks, metal rods and wooden clubs at the Galwan Valley last Monday after a weeks-long standoff.
China has not disclosed how many casualties it suffered, though an Indian minister has said around 40 Chinese soldiers may have been killed.
However, China’s Global Times newspaper quoting “Chinese experts” yesterday said “the reason why China did not release the number” of its casualties, was that China “wants to avoid an escalation.”
“If China released the number which is less than 20, the Indian government would again come under pressure,” the Global Times tweeted quoting an “observer.”
Chinese “analysts” and “observers” also accused Indian officials of placating nationalists by “making speculations on China’s casualties to satisfy Indian hardliners, such as speculating that China lost more soldiers than India.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a briefing in Beijing yesterday that the two sides were in communication through diplomatic and military channels.
Many in India have called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to show it will not be bullied, remembering their country’s humiliation in a brief border war against China in 1962.
Members of an Indian traders’ body made a bonfire of Chinese goods at a market in New Delhi, pushing for a nationwide boycott of products made in China.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which represents some 70mn traders, has asked federal and state governments to support a boycott of Chinese goods and cancel government contracts awarded to Chinese companies.
“The entire nation is filled with extreme anger and intensity to give a strong befitting response to China not only militarily but also economically,” CAIT national general secretary Praveen Khandelwal wrote in a letter to chief ministers of some states.
In prosperous Maharashtra, the government said it was putting three investment plans, including from Great Wall Motor Co, on hold.
“In the current environment we will wait for the federal government to announce a clear policy regarding these projects,” Industries Minister Subhash Desai said.
India has accused China of sending thousands of troops into the Galwan valley region and alleges China occupies 38,000sq km of its territory in northern Ladakh.
It has also rejected China’s claim over the Galwan valley.
Several rounds of talks have failed to settle the boundary disputes between the neighbours.
Foreign ministers of Russia, India and China are to participate in a meeting today amid reports that Moscow could play a mediating role in calming India-China tensions.
China is India’s second-biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth $87bn in the fiscal year ending March 2019, and a trade deficit of $53.57bn in China’s favour, the widest India has with any country.
The editor-in-chief of Global Times newspaper warned that the “nationalists of India need to cool down”.
“China’s GDP is five times that of India, military spending is three times,” Global Times editor Hu Xijin said in a post on Twitter.
It also said that “an escalated, large-scale military conflict involving main Chinese troops, if that were to happen, would mean an all-out war just like the war in 1962, with very disproportionate casualty figures unfavourable to India.”
from Gulf Times https://ift.tt/383m7hT
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