PLA faces off Indian Army at two points in Chushul, China talks peace

Although both sides refused to give in an inch of land in Ladakh or occupied Aksai Chin, there were indications and hints towards both the armies returning to the previous positions.

Updated on: Sep 5, 2020, 21:11:41 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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The tough meeting between Indian and Chinese defence ministers in Moscow on Friday evening converged on both sides willing to explore the peace option albeit the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has beefed up its positions south of Pangong Tso with its troops facing the Indian Army at two points.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh attends a Joint Meeting of Defence Ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Commonwealth of Independent States and Collective Security Treaty Organization Member States in Moscow, Russia. (AP photo)

According to diplomats based both in New Delhi and Moscow, Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh and his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe both held their positions while indicating that both countries were willing to give peace a chance in Ladakh. Singh is en-route to Delhi via Tehran.

Also Watch | Amid tiff with China, Rajnath Singh heads to Russia for SCO meet: Key details

Also read: Rajnath meets Chinese counterpart amid border tensions. Here’s what they said

While General Wei wrote down all the points raised by Singh during the two and a half-hour meeting, he claimed that the Indian media was very negative and also said that just like India was not of 1962, the PLA had also moved way ahead of skirmishes with Indian Army in 1962. Minister Singh expressed his helplessness in controlling the Indian media saying that India was a democratic country and the media was totally free.

Although both sides refused to give in an inch of land in Ladakh or occupied Aksai Chin, there were indications and hints towards both the armies returning to the previous positions. Perhaps the difference was that the Chinese wanted the previous positions of May, while India was clear that PLA goes back to the positions it occupied in April this year.

Also read: At SCO meet, Rajnath Singh tells China to restore status quo at LAC

However, even as the two senior leaders discussed the issue, the PLA continued to be aggressive mode south of Pangong Tso as it faces Indian Army troopers at the bump feature and at Rechin La in the Chushul Valley. According to senior officials, around 150 PLA troops are deployed at the bump feature with an anti-aircraft gun being moved up the Black Top by the Chinese army on its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The Indian and Chinese troops are face to face at Rechin la with the PLA moving in armour early this week to cow down Indian troopers. The Chinese PLA Air Force is continuing with combat air patrols in the area and the troop build-up continues not only in Ladakh but there are signs of force accretion on the Chinese border with Bhutan.

With India matching the PLA in not only troop build-up but also heavy artillery, the road to disengagement and de-escalation is long and tenuous. Now that the two defence ministers have had candid conversations, the stage is set for external affairs minister S Jaishankar to meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the SCO sidelines on September 10 to give a further push to peace.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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