The risk of miscalculation on the India-China border

Indian and Chinese soldiers fought many times from late April and early May, culminating in a deadly fight on June 15.

The world’s two most populous countries have held many military and diplomatic negotiations to reduce tensions and discussed withdrawing reinforcements to the border area.

A scuffle is said to have broken out and lasted three hours on September 7 near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which serves as the border between the two countries.

`I realized that small miscalculations can lead to big mistakes,` Mayankodu Kelath Narayanan, former Indian national security advisor, told CNBC on September 9.

Narayanan warned that India and China are in a `potentially risky` situation.

Chinese and Indian soldiers conduct joint exercises at the training ground in Meghalaya state, India, December 2019.

During the clash on September 7, the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Chinese soldiers tried to approach an Indian outpost along the LAC and `fired a few shots in the air to show their might`.

Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the accusations and said Indian soldiers `illegally crossed the border` and `blatantly opened fire to threaten Chinese border guards approaching them`.

Because soldiers on both sides of the front line are stationed not far from each other, `a deadly accidental shooting could seriously escalate tensions` and could trigger a larger conflict between India and China, Narayanan said.

India and China in 1996 reached an agreement not to open fire in the border area in the high mountains of the western Himalayas to avoid all-out military conflict, but there was no binding implementation mechanism.

The Indian government on August 31 accused China of launching `provocative military activities` three months after `the Chinese army annexed 60 square kilometers of Indian territory in Ladakh`.

Indian police sources said that Indian forces fought for three hours with Chinese soldiers in the narrow Spanggur valley, near Chushul village in eastern Ladakh on August 28.

However, at a press conference on the same day, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied accusations that its army crossed the LAC, the actual border with India.

Location of clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in recent months.