Satellite imagery taken on January 30 by Maxar Technologies in the US showed a series of Chinese deployments along Pangong Tso, a lake of strategic importance that crosses the de facto border of the two nuclear powers, known as the Line of Control. current (LAC). In the new images taken on Tuesday, dozens of vehicles and construction structures were removed, leaving the field empty.
China announced on February 10 that both countries had agreed to secede along the southern and northern shores of the lake.
Images and footage released by the Indian army on February 10 showed loaded excavator trucks and convoys, Chinese soldiers dismantling tents and carrying sacks outside the camp and moving People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tanks.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Beijing hopes India will “work with China to meet halfway.”
Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told parliament on February 11 that both sides would “remove the progress in a staged, coordinated and verified manner”.
Under the terms of “mutual and reciprocal” disengagement, China will maintain troops in the North Shore area east of a deployment known as Finger 8, while Indian troops will maintain a permanent base near a deployment known as Finger. 3, said Defense Minister Singh. Both sides will take “similar action” on the south bank, he added.
Any structure built by both sides after April 2020 will be removed and all military activities will be temporarily suspended on the northern shore, including patrolling. Land changes, such as excavations and trenches, will also be removed, according to Joshi.
Once the disconnection is complete, senior commanders on both sides will meet within 48 hours to discuss the remaining issues, Singh said.
Border collision in 2020
India and China have a 2,100-mile (3,379 km) border in the Himalayas, but both sides claim territory on both sides of it.
Pangong Tso, located at about 4,267 meters above sea level, stretches from Ladakh Indian territory to Chinese-controlled Tibet in the greater Kashmir region, where India, China and Pakistan claim their territory.
In 1962, India and China went to war for this remote, inhospitable expanse, eventually establishing the LAC – but the two countries disagree on its exact location and both regularly accuse the other of exceeds or seeks to expand its territory. Since then, they have had a history of mostly non-lethal fighting over the position of the border.
But violence erupted in June last year when at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a melee near Pangong Tso, marking the deadliest border conflict in 40 years. China has never acknowledged any casualties in the incident.
In September, China and India agreed not to send more troops to the border, following escalating tensions between the countries. The situation was temporarily resolved, with the two sides participating in several rounds of talks.
The latest round of talks, which led to the decoupling agreement, came after the Indian military said there was a “minor” confrontation between Indian soldiers and the Chinese LPA last month. It was “resolved by local commanders according to established protocols,” the Indian military said in a statement, without giving details of the injuries.
“Our goal is that there should be disengagement and stability in the LAC so that peace and tranquility can be properly established,” Singh said in a statement to parliament. “We hope that this will restore the situation to the one that existed before the start of last year’s distance.”
“I don’t think we will return to the top spot,” said Manoj Joshi of the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi. He added that there were “other strategic points” in dispute, such as the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, and that China continued to aggressively build its presence along various parts of the border.
“This disengagement is limited to the Pangong area,” he said. “But it’s about what we see in other areas. There are other strategic points … We have to be careful about how this is done.”