Border Dispute: Defence ministers of India, China to meet in Moscow

The defence ministers of India and China are expected to hold talks in Moscow -- the highest level face-to-face political contact since tensions flared along their disputed mountain border in May, government officials said yesterday.

Both sides deployed additional forces along the frontier running through the western Himalayas, after a clash in June, during which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was given clearance to meet his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe in Moscow, where both are attending a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, an Indian government official said. The request for the meeting came from the Chinese side, the official added.

"Subsequently a green signal was given for the meeting," the official said, asking not to be identified because of Indian service rules.

There was no word from China, but Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of China's state-backed Global Times newspaper said on Twitter that a meeting between the defence ministers was expected.

Despite the brutality of the clash in June, both sides appeared to observe a protocol to avoid the use of firearms in the high altitude region.

Military commanders and diplomats have been holding talks to end the standoff on the Line of Actual Control, or the de facto border, but there has been little progress.

Tensions are running high in eastern Ladakh yesterday after China moved additional forces in eastern Ladakh to counter heavy Indian deployments in the "tinderbox" region, according to Indian media.

The Indian troops occupied virtually all the dominating heights in the area over the weekend to pre-empt any misadventure by Chinese soldiers after brief confrontations on last Saturday and Monday.

"The situation all along the LAC is tense, with heavy deployments by both sides. But it's like a tinderbox in eastern Ladakh," a senior Indian officer said requesting anonymity.

With thousands of rival troops, tanks, armoured vehicles and howitzers ranged against each other, Indian Army chief General M M Naravane visited the Chushul sector in eastern Ladakh on Thursday.

In a parallel development underlining the heightened tensions along the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria on Wednesday visited frontline airbases in the eastern sector to review military preparedness.

China is seething at the way India conducted the military manoeuvre to occupy multiple heights near the southern bank of Pangong Tso, Spanggur Gap, Rezang La and Reqin La (Renchin mountain pass) at altitudes over 15,000 feet on August 29-30.

"The People's Liberation Army (PLA) was taken by complete surprise. It has moved additional forces opposite the Chushul sector in a show of force. But we are well-entrenched and well-prepared there, as elsewhere in eastern Ladakh," another Indian official said.

Tensions between the two armies in the freezing snow deserts of the Ladakh region have been running high for months.

In June, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting with Chinese troops in the nearby Galwan valley, the neighbours' most serious military clash in more than half a century.

Both sides had agreed to pull back after that clash, but the Indian Army accused Chinese forces of violating that accord over the weekend.

AFP, citing a Tibetan representative, reported that a Tibetan-origin soldier with India's special forces was killed in the Saturday's clash.

India and China, which fought a border war in 1962, have accused each other of seeking to cross their unofficial frontier in the Ladakh region in a bid to gain territory on Saturday night, and then again on Monday.