Indian and Chinese troops suffered minor injuries in a clash in the Tawang sector of India's Arunachal Pradesh state, the Indian army said on Monday, the first such incident since the deadly clash between the two neighbors in June 2020.
As many as 300 heavily prepared Chinese Army (PLA) soldiers were sent to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Tawang Sector of Arunachal Pradesh during the clash with Indian Army troops on December 9, but they did not expect the Indian side also to be well prepared, Hindustan Times reported Monday.
Arunachal Pradesh is located on India's eastern tip and shares a border with China.
"Both sides immediately disengaged from the area," the Indian army said, adding that the incident was followed by its commander in the area holding a meeting with his Chinese counterpart to discuss the issue.The undemarcated 3,800-km (2,360-mile) frontier between the Asian giants has stayed largely peaceful since a war in 1962, before the clashes two years ago sent relations nose diving, according to South China Morning Post.
In June 2020, Indian and Chinese troops were involved in a hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh, abutting the Chinese-held Tibetan plateau. The two sides agreed to disengage from the disputed area along the Himalayan border in September this year.
China Claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet
India's north-easternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh has a border with Tibet and is one of the largest territories claimed by the People's Republic of China (PRC). The watchword here is the "McMahon Line" border as Beijing disagrees with New Delhi's position on acknowledging it as the boundary between China and India.
China rejects the McMahon Line border line, which it calls "illegal" and "unacceptable," for the following reasons: first, the Sino-Indian boundary has never been properly demarcated; no treaty or agreement has been made between the Chinese Central Government and the government of India.
Second, Beijing rejects the McMahon Line under the pretext of "imperialist legacy" and disregards the 1914 Simla Convention between Britain, China, and Tibet on the grounds that Tibet was not a sovereign state and therefore, had no power to conclude treaties.
Therefore, India and China are stuck in the quagmire of an unresolved boundary dispute due to the absence of an internationally accepted boundary between the two countries, lack of an agreement over the de facto 'Line of Actual Control,' and the border not being demarcated on ground or delineated on maps.
China only laid claim to the Tawang region, but since the 1980s, Beijing has claimed all of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its 'South Tibet' territory.
In the year 2006 Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi stated, "In our [China's] position, the whole state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory. And Tawang is only one of the places in it. We are claiming all of that. That is our position."
The statement coming just a week ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to India from November 20-23, 2006, is significant as both countries claim progress in bilateral relations and on the border question.
The official Chinese maps have resulted in the renaming of some locations in Arunachal Pradesh. The names of 15 locations in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh were "standardized" in December 2021 by the Chinese Ministry of Aviation, including eight residential settlements, four mountains, two rivers, and one mountain pass. This was the second such Chinese "renaming" in relation to Arunachal Pradesh as a batch of six localities were standardized in April 2017. China uses this strategy to legitimise and strengthen its territorial claims over what it considers to be "South Tibet", which is legally administered by India.
Beijing's other practice of voicing its claims has been by lodging routine protests on the visits of Indian leaders and the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh.
India says China trying to 'change status quo' on disputed border
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