A day after China sharply reacted to India’s plans to construct a road network along the McMohan Line in Arunachal Pradesh, Home Minister Rajnath Singh sent a terse message, saying ‘no one can warn India’. He also said both countries should sit together to resolve border dispute. India has been objecting to China’s time-to-time incursion in Ladakh which is seen as part of Beijing’s strategy to transgress into India. Border issue always dominated the strategic discourse between the two sides and even figured during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s New Delhi visit. China’s new Ambassador to India Le Yucheng indicated this less than a week after President Xi Jinping’s visit when the boundary dispute dominated the strategic discourse between the two sides. He was speaking at a seminar in New Delhi recently. He dismissed speculation over disconnect between PLA and Communist Party of China and said, “Our army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China serves to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation and to protect our core national interests”. China has territorial disputes with Tiwan and Xinjiang. It has core interests which include maritime terriotorial dispute with Japan, Vietnam and Philippines. Official sources said Le’s remark linking PLA’s latest transgression in Chumar with “core interest” is significant as it indicates China’s hardening of stand on its dispute with India. PLA transgressed into Chumar to neutralise India’s strategic advantage in the area and sent an unusual large contingent of troops to negotiate hard so that India is forced to dismantle its infrastructure there. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tough stand on the issue and Indian Army’s decision to stay put to thwart any advantage to PLA has taken the latter by surprise. After the Chinese signed an agreement with India on political parameters for boundary dispute in 2005, they have become more aggressive. PLA will continue to press hard along LAC and we have to resist. They are militarily superior to us but they will not go to war. We have to handle Beijing in a matured fashion – engage economically, but resist their aggression.
