INDIA STICKS TO ITS GUNS ON CHINESE DIPLOMACY
Two days after People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China posted a picture of an editorial from 1962, the year it had handed out a humiliating military defeat to New Delhi, and also warned India against “encroaching” on its territory, New Delhi on Thursday said it will continue to use diplomatic channels to resolve the stand-off between the two militaries in the Doklam area near Sikkim.
Officials said Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will brief leaders of prominent Opposition parties on Friday on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir and the stand-off with China.
The outreach comes in the wake of a terror attack on pilgrims of Amarnath yatra on Monday, in which six pilgrims were killed and the increasing shrillness from Beijing on the Doklam stand-off. The government effort is to build consensus with the Opposition on the two issues with the monsoon session of Parliament beginning Monday.
The People’s Daily piece and the statements from the Chinese foreign ministry in the last two weeks, have rung alarm bells atop Raisina Hill. The People’s Daily article paraphrased pieces and editorials run by People’s Daily, Xinhua and Global Times to send out a clear message to India to accept China’s position on the current stand-off at the Sikkim border, or be prepared to face a repeat of 1962.
Headlined If this can be tolerated, what cannot? the editorial from September 22, 1962, short of a month before the 1962 Sino-Indian war broke out, stated that the “Chinese people would not tolerate the provocation by the Indian Army”, according to a People’s Daily Online article titled People’s Daily to India: Borderline is bottom line.
In an echo of the current Chinese stand on the Doklam dispute, the 1962 editorial had warned New Delhi of serious consequences if the conflict lingered. It had accused Indian troops of encroaching on Beijing’s territory.
In the past fortnight, Beijing has accused Indian troops of having “trespassed” into its Donglang (Doklam) area. The territory is also claimed by Bhutan. “The Indian military’s trespass into Chinese territory is a blatant infringement on China’s sovereignty, which should be immediately and unconditionally rectified,” it said, noting that ever since Indian soldiers “crossed into Chinese territory” and “obstructed work on a road” in the Doklam area in June, China has lodged protests demanding India pull back its troops immediately. “India should rectify its mistakes and show sincerity to avoid an even more serious situation creating more significant consequences,” the piece said. On Wednesday, China offered to play a “constructive” role to resolve the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, especially after the increased hostility along the LoC, a comment aimed at unsettling India which points to the Simla Agreement where New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to resolve it bilaterally.