India has crossed the Line of Actual Control more number of times than China, but the government does not publicly announce it, the former Army Chief and Union minister VK Singh was quoted on Sunday as saying by The Hindu. "Let me assure you, if China has transgressed 10 times, we must have done it at least 50 times," the former Army chief told reporters.
Singh said that India's border with China had never been demarcated, and that the two countries have differing perceptions about the de facto border. "China had transgressed many times over the years with its own perception of the LAC," the minister added. "Similarly, none of you come to know how many times we have transgressed as per our perception. Chinese media does not cover it."
In response to Singh's remarks, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated that this was an acknowledgement of encroachment by India.
"This is an unwitting confession by the Indian side. For a long time, the Indian side has conducted frequent acts of trespass in the border area in an attempt to encroach on China's territory and constantly created disputes and frictions, which is the root cause of the tensions at the China-India border," he stated at the daily briefing on Monday.
He added, "We urge the Indian side to follow through on the consensus, agreements and treaties it reached with China, and uphold peace and stability in the border region with concrete actions."
The Indian minister said that when China crossed in eastern Ladakh in 2020, India had responded with equal measures, and that the situation was "very well under control". "Today, China is under pressure, since we are sitting at places [along the border], where it does not like," he claimed. "China has realized that it was not easy anymore to hit back at India."
China knows that India will give a fitting reply, if something goes wrong on the border, Sing said adding India had hit Beijing economically by banning its apps and boycotting its goods. "All these affect them," he said.
India and China went to war in 1962 and have not been able to settle their border dispute since then. Both lay claim to thousands of kilometers of territory in each other's control. Tensions flared up on June 15 last year, during deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Galwan Valley of Ladakh region. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed.
China had increased its frontline troop deployment and penetrated much further into areas like the Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso Lake beyond its traditional patrolling patterns. This led to the first clashes in May 2020, which triggered the unresolved stand-off at multiple points.
Several rounds of diplomatic and military level of talks have been held over the past few months to disengage troops, but these have failed to break the deadlock.
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