India and China blame each other for the collapse of border talks

By Devgiot Ghoshal and Gabriel Crossley

the newdelicious food/BeijingOctober 11 – India and China blamed each other on Monday for stalled talks between their military leaders to resolve a protracted standoff over part of the disputed Himalayan border, given the impossibility of progress.

Thousands of Indian and Chinese troops have been fighting in India’s Ladakh region since last year, although the two armies have held more than a dozen rounds of talks to defuse the situation.

India’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that Chinese and Indian leaders met for the thirteenth time on Sunday when Indian leaders emphasized that the standoff stemmed from “unilateral attempts by the Chinese side to change the status quo.”

“During the meeting, the Indian side therefore made constructive suggestions to resolve the remaining areas, but the Chinese side did not agree and could not make any proposals for the future,” the Indian ministry said, adding that the meeting did not lead to a decision. conflict.

In February, the two sides agreed to withdraw troops from some areas around Pangong Tso, a 4,270-meter glacier lake, after protracted negotiations between military leaders and diplomats from both sides.

“The Indian side continued to insist on unreasonable and unrealistic demands, which made negotiations difficult,” said Long Shaohua, spokesman for the Western Command of the People’s Liberation Army.

Long said he hoped India would not “misjudge the situation” and work with China to maintain peace in the region.

The deployment of forces from the two countries in the region was reinforced after the June 2020 clashes, when 20 Indian soldiers were killed in an encounter with iron bars and stones in Jalwan Valley, Ladakh province.

China also suffered an unspecified number of casualties, which was the first fatal combat losses for both countries at the border in 45 years.

However, troops remain close in other parts of Ladakh, a snowy, barren desert that stretches along part of the 3,500 km of the shared border between the two nuclear-weapon states.

Both India and China, who fought a border war in 1962, claim territories that overlap in vast areas along their borders.