Indian, Chinese commanders meet to de-escalate tensions

Public mood hardens for military and economic riposte after Ladakh clash

Indian and Chinese military commanders met on Monday 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 state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital of Mumbai, put three initial investment proposals from Chinese companies worth Rs50 billion ($658 million) 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.

Long meeting

An Indian 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.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a briefing in Beijing yesterday that the two sides were in communication through diplomatic and military channels.