On the border between India and China, where war without weapons is waged with stones and sticks
Groups of soldiers confront each other on the slopes with stones and sticks, in compliance with the agreement between India and China that security forces deployed along the temporary border may not use firearms
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From our correspondent
NEW DELHI
Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar returned to the issue of territorial disputes with China, pointing out that Beijing has allegedly violated agreements between the two countries in the past by deploying a large number of soldiers in the Himalayas and creating the conditions for the current 'abnormal deployment of forces along the Line of Actual Control', the controversial temporary border between the two countries. The Indian minister emphasised that troops from both countries continue to occupy areas ahead of their own bases and that national security 'is a challenge'.
In reviewing the complicated history of relations between the two countries, Jaishankar recalled the 1962 war, Rajiv Gandhi's attempts at normalisation in 1988, and the incidents that took place from May 2020 to January of the following year when the two armies repeatedly faced each other at an altitude of over 4,000 metres. A video that appears to document those clashes from the perspective of Chinese forces has surfaced on the web in recent days.
In the pictures, groups of soldiers can be seen confronting each other on steep slopes with stones and sticks, in compliance with the existing agreement between India and China that security forces deployed along the temporary border may not use firearms. Despite this rule of engagement established to avert the risk of escalation between the two nuclear powers, 20 Indian and 4 Chinese soldiers lost their lives in the skirmishes between 2020 and 2021.
