The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection.
They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory. So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said.
China denies any incursion, but Indian officials say that for two weeks, the soldiers have refused to move back over the so-called Line of Actual Control that divides Indian-ruled territory from Chinese-run land, leaving the government on the verge of a crisis with its powerful northeastern neighbor.
Indian officials fear that if they react with force, the face-off could escalate into a battle with the powerful People’s Liberation Army. But doing nothing would leave a Chinese outpost deep in territory India has ruled since independence.”
h/t Maz2
So, in essence, they laid claim to a useless patch of mountain rock and snow. Where nothing grows.
Clever, these Chinese.
Not to worry, Obama will go over there and teleprompter them back across the border and the Nobel Peace Prize winner will have performed another miracle with his mouth.
The Indian Gov’t should report that the Chinese are making films about the ROP and let them take care of it.
mid island mike
With a coward in the White House, you can expect more and more of this sort of thing.
What about all the Chinese controlled land in Canada? There are mines, in Canada, that are controlled and manned by Chinese citizens. I am not making this up.
There is a warning here, IMO.
And Richmond,which is also owned and controlled by the Chinese.
China and India have fought numerous battles and little wars over their border in my lifetime. None ever escalated beyond a tussle in the hills.
To those early commenters: why should the US do anything about this, no matter who’s in the White House?
The era of US as world policeman is over … done … kaput.
Besides, China’s got plenty of money to spend.
Send in Fantino and McDinky. They’ll help those Indians get their land back!
As long as they subject themselves to our immigration and customs controls while crossing our borders and obey our laws while they are here, those Chinese owning and working their property here aren’t doing anything that can give substance to a challenge to our sovereignty in the territory in which the property lies.
Establishing the presence of their armed forces inside our borders would be an overt claim of possession of the occupied territory.
syf
now that was a dumb statement, incremental tests for reaction are a sure way to establish when a larger war can be fought, and rest assured there is always a good chance the USA could be drawn in to it, or into another war that gets started because no one is stopping them. You may not be aware but there were a couple of such instances last century were this happened, they were called world wars!!!!!
This one is really perplexing.
Off the top of my head, a few thoughts come to mind. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for the Chinese to grab a relatively small chunk of pretty useless territory for its own sake when it risks seriously antagonizing a growing trading partner and potential regional ally. There are several possibilities. The report may be wrong on certain critical details. Within China, the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing and this may have been undertaken at a lower echelon of the PLA without higher level oversight. However, given the obsession with central control, it’s unlikely. This may represent a testing of Indian resolve or military capability. This may be an attempt to provoke a crisis and destabilize the current Indian government. Or this may represent an attempt to undermine the current Chinese leadership as part of an internal Chinese power struggle, either political or within the PLA. Time will tell, hopefully without bloodshed.
From the Miami Herald link:
“Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said Wednesday that while he had no plans to cancel a trip to Beijing next week to prepare for Li’s visit, the government could reconsider in the coming week.
“A week is a long time in politics,” …
No kidding! “western print media” has noticed? NDTV reported on this 12 days ago. Nowhere in the Miami Herald article does it state when this incursion into India took place, sure the article is dated today… but…
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/reader-tips-2395.html#comment-814768
They’re soldiers, not farmers, it suits just fine as a military outpost.
If India was a women this would be sexual assault, not marriage.
Is it too early to say that this is another foreign policy success for great, successful, president Obama?
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china and the islamic middle east countries have all kinds of military & economic ties. who supplied iran with the silkworm missiles that smoked an israeli military corvette?
the chinese are simaltaneously buying up african dictators wholesale. they need raw materials they don’t have at home.
india is china’s biggest economic competitor on the international scene. this is simply the foreplay to the big joust… where china backs a pakistani play for a goodly chunk of the indian subcontinent.
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Inside Indian Territory?
The Indian Army can make that spot a temporary artillery, air-to-ground and rifle range.
That’s what I was thinking. If China denies any incursion, there can’t be outrage over the carpet bombing of an entire Chinese platoon.
Probably just a feint to give Obama a hint that his
granting the Chinese a 100 year lease on California
isn’t the only option they have in mind.
The Indian Army will certainly be clamoring for a big
speedup in the delivery of the M777 howitzers and
air transport systems they have contracted for.