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By NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press Nirmala George, Associated Press – Mon Jan 10, 9:13 am ET
NEW DELHI – Armed Chinese soldiers infiltrated Indian territory and threatened construction workers near a disputed border in September, Indian media reported Monday.
The Chinese incursion took place in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, the Press Trust of India said without citing a source for the information.
Chinese soldiers threatened an Indian contractor and his workers who were building a bus station near Demchok in India's Leh region along the so-called Line of Actual Control that divides India and China. Construction work has been halted since then, the report said.
China has made similar incursions previously, the most serious in 1962 when the two sides fought a brief border war. The incident underscores the tensions that exist between the Asian giants stemming from India's swift economic growth and the increasing challenge it poses to China's dominance of the region.
On Monday, India's army chief, Gen. V. K. Singh, played down the incident saying it may have occurred over "a difference in perception" of where the border lies. Singh said the Line of Actual Control as perceived by India "runs in a particular direction, while the Chinese have a different alignment of the Line."
India's External Affairs Ministry in a statement later said the media reports were baseless and did not conform to fact.
"They are, therefore, not a cause for concern. It will be recollected that there are differences in perception, between India and China, on the Line of Actual Control in this area," the statement said.
Calls to the Chinese Foreign Ministry late Monday rang unanswered.
India and China — neighbors with more than 1 billion people each — have shared chilly relations since the 1962 war.
New Delhi says China is illegally occupying 15,000 square miles (38,000 square kilometers) of its northwestern territory, while Beijing claims a 35,000 square mile (90,000 square-kilometer) chunk in northeastern India. The countries have conducted 14 rounds of talks to resolve their decades-long border dispute.
China is a longtime ally and weapons supplier to Pakistan, India's bitter rival. The presence in India of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile, headed by the Dalai Lama, and 120,000 exiles from Tibet also remains a source of tension between New Delhi and Beijing. China is also suspicious of New Delhi's growing ties with the United States.
Despite the tensions, trade between the two sides, estimated at about $60 billion in 2010, has been booming and is expected to reach $100 billion in the next three years.
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Video: Chinese troops enter Indian territory again
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India will take revenge for China incursion in Ladakh in summer: Farooq Abdullah
TIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES, Jan 10, 2011, 08.53pm IST
SRINAGAR: Former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has threatened China of revenge in Leh during summer amid reports of "incursions" into Indian territory in J&K's Ladakh region. Abdullah said China had "betrayed the concept of friendship".
Farooq Abdullah told reporters in Jammu on Sunday that India will show its strength during summer as there is extreme cold this time in Leh.
"China has betrayed the concept of friendship despite the fact that the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had promised friendship during his visit to India," Abdullah said on the sidelines of a function in Jammu on Sunday night.
"Those hopes have been belied by the incursion of Chinese troops into the border area of Leh," the minister said, replying to a question on reports of incursion by Chinese troops and halting of work at Demchok, close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC), in October last year.
Farooq suggested that India should not demilitarize its borders touching China and said that prime ministerial level talks between the two countries late year has not yielded results, even though talks between prime minister of China Wen Jiabeo and PM Manmohan Singh were held in congenial atmosphere.
"We already had a bitter experience with our neighbouring country China and I think India should not lower its guard from the borders touching China and simultaneously vigil should also be intensified," said Farooq.
The former CM said the incursion issue is being discussed by the Indian defence minister and external affairs minister. Farooq also said that India must attach full importance to security considerations along its borders with the neighbouring country.
Abdullah, the minister for new and renewable energy and former J&K chief minister, had visited Leh on Sunday to review reconstruction work undertaken in the aftermath of the devastating cloudburst and flash floods there in August last year.
A newspaper, Greater Kashmir, published simultaneously from Jammu and Srinagar, has published an interview of Chering Dorjee, former chief executive councillor of Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council, quoting him as saying that Demchok villagers were scared and had fled their homes.
"Currently, many villages in Demchok are empty as there is no security provided to the residents to save them from the haunting shadow of the Dragon," Dorjee said. "Recently, I along with some administrative officials went to Demchok. But the entire community has left from some villages there."
He said Demchok residents are now living in Koyul area of Ladakh.
"During my interaction with residents there, I was told that the Chinese army harasses them regularly and nobody is providing them security," the newspaper quoted Dorjee as saying.
"The worried residents are feeling insecure. They said nobody is securing them from Chinese soldiers and that is why they have fled from the villages."
Dorjee also alleged that the residents of Demchok had complained to the army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) posts about the Chinese incursions, but "they turned a blind eye towards the grave issue".
"I also came to know that a hydrotherapy centre there has been barred for Demchok residents," Dorjee said. "The hydrotherapy centre is now used by Chinese soldiers. They take a bath there and leave. They do not allow the residents to use it."
Dorjee alleged that the "ITBP is not doing anything to stop the problem. "The Chinese soldiers barge into Indian territory and issue orders. Our army instead of taking action against the PLA (Chinese army) restricts us from our areas".
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About Demchok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demchok
Demchok or "New Demchok" is a small village and military emcampment in the Indian-administered part of the disputed Demchok sector south of Aksai Chin, in the Ladakh district of India. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) passes along the southeast side of the village, following a wadi just upstream from the nearby Indus River. Across the wadi, less than a kilometer away, is the Chinese-administered village, called Dêmqog, in the Ngari Prefecture within the Tibet Autonomous Region. This village was on an old route linking Ladakh and Tibet, currently closed.[1] The village lies 36.5 km east of Ukdungle.
Though the Kailash Mansarovar is 300 km away, the route there is mostly through plains [2] and there is demand to improve and open a road linking China and India through Demchok.
Map of Damchok, Leh District, Jammu & Kashmir (bottom right)
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(if you having troubles, try posting your comment on this page or send an email to chronicle @ itbhuglobal.org)Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP