The Indian Army today “successfully completed” patrolling to one of the patrol points in the Depsang region of Ladakh following a consensus between the Indian and Chinese troops last month over patrolling arrangements in Demchock and Depsang.

The 14 Corps, also known as the Fire and Fury Corps, gave an update and said, “Following the consensus reached between the Indian and Chinese Side for disengagement and resumption of patrolling in Depsang and Demchok, the Indian Army patrol to one of the patrolling points in Depsang was successfully conducted today.” 

“This is yet another positive step towards maintaining peace and tranquillity on the LAC,” the Fire and Fury Corps said.

The Ministry of External Affairs in its briefing last week said, the verification patrolling has commenced in the two regions – Demchok in eastern Ladakh and Depsang in the north – making way for coordinated patrolling to begin.

The breakthrough was announced a day before Prime Minister Modi was scheduled to leave for the BRICS Summit in Russia, where he held bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.

On October 21, the MEA announced that the “last phase of disengagement was agreed upon between India and China” over patrolling arrangements in the two regions and the troops would return to the positions that existed before the stand-off in 2020, which saw a violent clash in the Galwan valley and standoff in the Pangong Tso region and Gogra Hot Springs and heavy troop and armour deployment in the region. 

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar confirmed the announcement at the NDTV World Summit that day and said “We reached an agreement on patrolling, and we have gone back to the 2020 position. With that, we can say the disengagement with China has been completed… There are areas which, for various reasons after 2020, they blocked us, we blocked them. We have now reached an understanding which will allow patrolling as we had been doing till 2020.”

In 2021, the two sides completed disengagement on the north and south bank of the Pangong Tso (lake) in eastern Ladakh after Corps Commander level talks. A year later, In September 2022, Indian and Chinese troops withdrew from the contentious Gogra-Hot Springs area in Ladakh and returned to the pre-April-2020 position.

On Diwali, Indian and Chinese troops stationed at the Line of Actual Control exchanged sweets and sources had told NDTV that the verification process is on and the modalities of patrolling will be decided by the ground commanders.

Satellite Images

The disengagement process included the dismantling of structures and the restoration of the land on which they stood to their original condition. 

Days after the agreement was announced, NDTV had accessed the first satellite images proving that structures were being removed by the Chinese side. 

An image from the Depsang plains taken on October 11 showed four vehicles and two tents and, in another from October 25, the tents were gone and the vehicles could be seen moving away. The images were of an area near the ‘Y Junction’ from where Indian soldiers were prevented from travelling east to India’s patrolling points, which mark the extent of the Line of Actual Control that India claims in these areas. 

Another set of images showed semi-permanent Chinese structures being removed from Demchok.

New Delhi:

The disengagement of Indian and Chinese forces near the Line of Actual Control is “almost over”, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said today. The minister said that while India wants to go “beyond disengagement”, this would “take time”.

“India and China have been holding talks at both diplomatic and military levels to resolve the differences in some areas along the LAC. As a result of the talks, a broad consensus was developed on the basis of equal and mutual security. The consensus includes the rights of patrolling and grazing in traditional areas. Based on this consensus, the process of disengagement is almost complete. Our efforts will be to take the matter beyond disengagement; but for that, we will have to wait a little longer,” he said.

The Defence Minister today dedicated to the nation a statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, whose birth anniversary is being celebrated today, at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. He also opened the Major Ralengnao ‘Bob’ Khathing ‘Museum of Valour’. Mr Singh inaugurated these from the Army headquarters in Assam’s Tezpur after he could not travel to Tawang due to bad weather.

Mr Singh paid tributes to Sardar Patel for his key role in unifying over 560 princely states after India’s Independence in 1947. “This statue ‘Desh Ka Vallabh’ will inspire people reminding them of the strength in unity and the unwavering spirit required to build a nation as diverse as ours,” he said.

He also paid respects to Major Bob Khathing for his contribution to the Northeast region and national security. “Major Khathing not only led the peaceful integration of Tawang into India but also established essential military and security frameworks, including the Sashastra Seema Bal, Nagaland Armed Police, and the Naga Regiment. The ‘Museum of Valour’ now stands as a tribute to his bravery and foresight, inspiring generations to come,” he said.

In a step towards easing the tension at the LAC following the violent clashes in Galwan Valley in 2020, India and China last week agreed on a patrolling agreement under which both sides will fall back to their pre-April 2020 positions. Delhi and Beijing, however, will continue to have surveillance options in Depsang and Demchok, and will inform the other side before stepping out on patrol “to avoid any miscommunication”.

The agreement was announced hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Russia visit for the BRICS summit where he spoke to China President Xi Jinping. Mr Modi told the Chinese leader, “It should be our priority to ensure there is peace and stability along our border”, and stressed the need for “mutual trust, mutual respect”.

Geneva:

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said today that there has been “some progress” with China on the boundary issue. The minister said that approximately 75 per cent of the “disengagement” problems has been resolved.

Mr Jaishankar, who is in Geneva, Switzerland for bilateral meetings, said this at an interactive session at the Global Centre for Security Policy – an independent think-tank. The minister further said that the bigger issue has been the increasing militarisation of the frontier.

Mr Jaishankar said the Galwan Valley clashes of June 2020 affected the “entirety” of India-China ties, asserting that “One cannot have violence at the border and then say the rest of the relationship is insulated from it”.

“Negotiations are going on. We made some progress. I would say roughly you can say about 75 per cent of the disengagement problems are sorted out,” he said, adding “We still have some things to do.”

Ties between India and China have been at an all-time low as the militaries of both nations have been standing their ground since the standoff in Ladakh began in May 2020. The disengagement process began in February 2021 and has been on since.

Roughly 75% of the disengagement problems with China has been sorted out, Mr Jaishankar said. Mr Jaishankar is scheduled to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his visit to Switzerland.

Talks at both the diplomatic and military levels between India and China have held on an ongoing basis. “We hope that if there is a solution to the disengagement and there is a return to peace and tranquility, then we can look at other possibilities,” Mr Jaishankar said.

While partial disengagement from Galwan, Hot Springs, and Gogra happened in July 2020 while full disengagement from Pangong Lake north and south banks took place in February 2021. However, Chinese soldiers are firmly entrenched in the Depsang Plains in northeastern Ladakh and show no signs of moving.

The Line of Actual Control or LAC between India and China, including China-occupied Tibet, is around 3,500 km in length.

India has maintained that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas.

“The basis obviously for a good relationship, I would say even for a normal relationship, was that there would be peace and tranquility in the border. After things started to take a better turn in 1988, we had a series of agreements which stabilised the border,” Mr Jaishankar said.

VIOLATIONS BY CHINA

Speaking about how China unilaterally changed the status-quo along the LAC, Mr Jaishankar said “What happened in 2020 was in violation of multiple agreements for some reasons which are still entirely not clear to us; we can speculate on it.”

“The Chinese actually moved a very large number of troops to the Line of Actual Control at the border and naturally in response, we moved our troops up. It was very difficult for us because we were in the middle of a Covid lockdown at that time,” he said.

Describing the development as very dangerous and referring to the Glawan clashes, Mr Jaishankar said, “Now we could see straight away that this was a very dangerous development because the presence of a large number of troops in these extreme heights and extreme cold in near proximity could lead to a mishap. And that’s exactly what happened.”

“We have now been negotiating close to four years and the first step of that is what we called disengagement which is their troops go back to their normal operating bases and our troops go back to their normal operating bases and where required we have an arrangement about patrolling because both of us patrol regularly in that border as I said it is not a legally delineated border.” Mr Jaishankar said.

IMPACT ON INDIA-CHINA TIES

Since the military clashes and subsequent standoff in Ladakh, the ties between India and China have been at an all-time low. The economic ties between the two nations have been imbalanced for the last few decades.

Speaking about trade ties, Mr Jaishankar said, the economic relationship with China has been “very unfair” and “unbalanced”. But he has maintained that India is not closed for business with China.

Two days ago, during his visit to Germany, Mr Jaishankar had said that India is “not closed to business from China”, but the issue is in which sectors the country does business with Beijing and on what terms.

“We are not closed to business from China…I think the issue is, which sectors do you do business and what terms do you do business? It’s far more complicated than a black and white binary answer,” Mr Jaishankar had said.

Since the Ladakh standoff, India has tightened its scrutiny of investments from Chinese companies and stopped all major projects, including in infrastructure. But as progress is made with China on disengagement along the LAC, government officials, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, have backed suggestions to allow more Chinese investment in the country.

Along with investment scrutiny, India has also virtually blocked visas for all Chinese nationals since 2020, but is now considering easing them for Chinese technicians, as it had hindered investments worth billions of dollars.

Since the Ladakh standoff, passenger flights between India and China had also stopped, but with progress in disengagement, though slow, resumption of flights is now being discussed.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said today that early resumption of direct flights between India and China have been discussed by both nations.

According to a news report by Reuters, China has been pressing India since June to resume direct passenger flights, but New Delhi is resisting it as the disengagement in Ladakh is not complete.