Video Emerges Showing Clashes Between Indian, Chinese Soldiers

Late last week, we reported that in the first documented clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers who have been piling up across the border between the two nations over the latest territorial dispute, "Indian and Chinese soldiers were involved in an altercation" in the western Himalayas on Tuesday, "further raising tensions between the two countries which are already locked in a two-month standoff in another part of the disputed border." A Reuters source in New Delhi who was briefed on the military situation on the border, said Indian soldiers "foiled a bid by a group of Chinese troops to enter Indian territory in Ladakh, near the Pangong lake." He added that some of the Chinese soldiers carried iron rods and stones, and in the melee there were minor injuries on both sides.

"There was an altercation near the Pangong lake," said a police officer in Srinagar, the capital of India"s Jammu and Kashmir state, under which the area falls. An army source in Srinagar, quoted by Reuters, spoke of an altercation following what he called a Chinese army "incursion in Pangong lake area". This fresh standoff at Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh comes in the backdrop of tensions between Indian and Chinese troops over Doklam plateau in Sikkim sector with the PLA skipping the ceremonial border meetings on Independence Day.

What is notable about this concerning breakout of violence, is how silent both India and China have been, with neither side issuing an official statement confirming or denying last week"s events.

Overnight, thanks to India"s NDTV, five days after the "unconfirmed" scuffle in Ladakh, a video of the clash has surfaced. The video, which has been widely circulated on social media, shows many soldiers from the two countries punching and kicking each other and throwing stones.

h/t Stock Board Asset

India Deploys More Troops Along China Border, Raises "Caution" Level

With the world obsessing over every increasingly childish outburst in the daily back and forth between Trump and Kim Jong-Un, another conflict which has so far gone largely unnoticed by the global media continues to grow on the border between India and China.

As reported yesterday, in the most recent escalation between the two nuclear powers, the Indian Army ordered the evacuation of a village close to the Doklam India-Bhutan-China tri-junction amid to a standoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers. This takes place just days after China turned the war threat amplifier up to "11" by threatening India (in an article published a Chinese state-controlled newspaper) that it could conduct a "small-scale military operation" to expel Indian troops from a contested region in the Himalayas.

For those who need a reminder, the latest geopolitical standoff between India and China started in June, after Chinese troops started building a road on a remote plateau which is disputed by China and Bhutan. Indian troops countered by moving to the flashpoint zone to halt the work, with China accusing them of violating its territorial sovereignty and calling for their immediate withdrawal.

After adding a large number of troops to the region, China then sharply escalated when a Chinese Ministry of Defense warned explicitly that Indian troops must leave the contested area if they do not want war.

Then, earlier this week, tensions escalated further when as the Independent reported, the Chinese state-owned Global Times quoted a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences who said China is preparing to initiate a "limited war" to push Indian soldiers out of the area.

To this, the Indian response was the abovementioned forced evacuation of a few hundred villagers living in Nathang, who were asked to vacate their houses immediately, according to News18. Nathang is 35 km from the site of the two-month old standoff.

Which brings us to today, and the latest report by PTI India, according to which in a strategically key move, India has poured in more troops along the entire stretch of its border with China in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in the face of heightened rhetoric by Beijing over the Dokalam standoff, according to senior government officials on Friday.

Furthermore, the "caution level" among the troops has also been raised, the officials told PTI.

The Indian officials said that the decision to increase the deployment along the nearly 1,400-km Sino-India border from Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh was taken after carrying out a detailed analysis of the situation and considering China"s aggressive posturing against India on Dokalam.

"The troop level along the border with China in the Sikkim and Arunachal sectors has been increased," said the officials on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information. The Army"s Sukna-based 33 Corps as well as 3 and 4 corps based in Arunachal and Assam are tasked to protect the sensitive Sino-India border in the eastern theatre.

However, the officials declined to give any figure or percentage of increased deployment, saying they cannot disclose "operational details."

According to defence experts, roughly 45,000 troops including personnel having completed the weather acclimatisation process are normally kept ready along the border at any given time, but not all are necessarily deployed. The soldiers, deployed over 9,000 feet, have to go through a 14-day-long acclimatisation process.

The officials, however, said there is no enhancement of troops at the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction in Dokalam where around 350 army personnel are holding on to their position for nearly eight weeks after stopping Chinese troops from constructing a road on June 16.

Bhutan and China have competing claims over Dokalam, and are negotiating a resolution. Meanwhile, China has been ramping up bellicose rhetoric against India over the last few week - in many aspect echoing either side in the US-North Korea conflict - demanding immediate withdrawal of Indian troops from Dokalam. Both the Chinese and Indian state medias have carried a barrage of critical articles on the Dokalam stand-off slamming India.

India"s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj recently said both sides should first pull back their troops for any talks to take place, and favoured a peaceful resolution of the border standoff. India also conveyed to the Chinese government that the road construction would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for it.

So far, not only has neither side pulled back troops, but as today"s latest news of increasing deployment suggests, a full blown conflict, one whose consequences could be far more devastating than a US military intervention in North Korea, looks increasingly likely with every passing day.

Billions Of Lives At Stake As China Threatens India With War After "Blatant Sovereignty Infringement"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

It could be argued that there’s never been a time in history, where so many Americans thought that we were on the brink of another major war. If you pay attention to the constant news stream of stories regarding Syria, North Korea, or Russia, you’d be hard pressed to deny it. In fact, a recent poll found that 76% of Americans are worried that another war will break out in the next 4 years, and 80% were afraid that we could be embroiled in a conflict with North Korea in the near future.

There’s no doubt that Americans are fraught with fear over the thought that a new war is on the horizon, especially if that war could lead to another global conflict. But most Americans forget that the world doesn’t revolve around them. They worry a lot about their nation engaging in another world war, but they forget that there are several powerful nations that could spark a global conflagration without America’s input.

Among them are China and India, who have been engaged in a border dispute for decades. That dispute has flared up once again, as China hurls threats of war with India.

The ruling Communist Party of China has issued a stern warning to neighboring India, with which it is engaged in a bitter border dispute that has recently seen Chinese live-fire drills and media speculation of extensive Indian military casualties denied by both sides.

 

After accusing Indian troops of crossing over the disputed Sikkim border last month, Chinese Communist Party outlet Global Times published a commentary Tuesday urging restraint by both belligerents, but warning that China was prepared to engage India in a battle for the contested land. The piece chalked up the conflict to a greater competition for economic and political dominance between the two leading Asian powers and said that Beijing would amass troops and armaments at the border in anticipation for what could turn into an all-out war.

This isn’t the first time that these two nations have been at each other’s throats over their borders. In 1962 their armies clashed, leading to defeat of the Indian army, and thousands of casualties on both sides. Based on the rhetoric coming out of Beijing’s state sponsored media, it appears that China is willing to replicate that conflict. From the Global Times’ op-ed.

On June 16, Indian border guards crossed over the Sikkim section of the China-India border to the Chinese side, triggering a face-off with Chinese troops. India"s action this time is a blatant infringement on China"s sovereignty.  

 

As the confrontation goes on, China needs to get ready for the face-off becoming a long-term situation and at the same time, needs to maintain a sense of rationality. Within China, there are voices calling for the Indian troops to be expelled immediately to safeguard the country"s sovereignty, while Indian public opinion is clamoring for war with China. However, the two sides need to exercise restraint and avoid the current conflict spiraling out of control.

 

“China doesn’t recognize the land under the actual control of India is Indian territory. Bilateral border negotiations are still ongoing, but the atmosphere for negotiations has been poisoned by India,”

 

“China doesn’t advocate and tries hard to avoid a military clash with India, but China doesn’t fear going to war to safeguard sovereignty either, and will make itself ready for a long-term confrontation.”

Of course, if war did break out again between China and India, there would be one significant differences from the Sino-Indian war of 1962. This time around, both nations would have hundreds of nuclear weapons. And it’s possible that Pakistan, another nuclear armed nation that India has fought border disputes with in the past, could also be swept into the conflict. It should go without saying that billions of lives are at stake every time these nations hurl threats of war at each other.

Americans often worry about various geopolitical hotspots that could drag our nation into a world war. But they shouldn’t forget that there are plenty of places where another global war could start without our country ever lifting a finger. The whole planet is a powder keg.