A Himalayan spat between China and India evokes memories of war

FOR nearly six weeks, armed contingents of two of the biggest military forces in the world have faced off in a high-altitude game of chicken in the Himalayas. Roughly 300-400 Indian soldiers and an equal number of Chinese border guards are stuck glowering at one another over a scrubby patch of land at a “tri-junction”, where the two countries and the tiny kingdom of Bhutan all meet. Analysts cannot see how either side might easily stand down. Memories of a bloody border war fought between China and India in 1962 are all too easily evoked.

That war, which saw India humiliated, began after the Chinese built a road across disputed territory in the far west of the two countries’ 4,000km-long, disputed border. The latest problems began when Chinese border guards were spotted moving road-making equipment onto the Dolam plateau, a flat spot in the slightly larger region known as Doklam (or Donglang in Mandarin) which all three sides patrol. On June 18th Indian troops moved onto the plateau to prevent the resurfacing of a dirt track. No shots were fired, though a shoving match was captured on video. Doklam is the subject of a long-standing territorial dispute, one of many in the region. What makes India’s actions extraordinary is that the dispute is not between India and China, but rather between China and Bhutan. India makes no claim to the plateau, which it says it has moved onto on Bhutan’s behalf. What is less clear is whether Bhutan, an ally which India has in the past treated as a vassal, really wanted Indian help.