A Reuters report has said
that the efforts to diffuse the Doklam border standoff between China and India at
diplomatic levels have hit a roadblock. The report quoting people who have been
briefed on the talks, said that "India’s diplomatic efforts to end a
seven-week military standoff with China have hit a roadblock "as there has
been no further development "on the low-key diplomatic manoeuvres that
took place outside the public eye."
Last week, while speaking on
the Doklam standoff in the Parliament, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj
had said that war was not a solution and diplomatic efforts were needed to
resolve the crisis. But, according to Reuters, "China did not respond to
India’s suggestion in the talks that it move its troops back 250 metres in
return if India has to withdraw its troops from Doklam," quoting a source
with deep access to the Modi government.
"The Chinese countered
with an offer to move back 100 metres, so long as they received clearance from
top government officials", the Reuters report further said but there has
no further headway after it, as clear from increasing war rhetoric from China. “It
is a logjam, there is no movement at all now,” the report said quoting another
source.
Meanwhile China has continued
ratcheting up its anti-India rhetoric through statements of its foreign
ministry, defence ministry, People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its state run
media, infusing it with war threats, saying it is now up to India to deescalate
the border tension and withdraw its troops from an area that it claims as its
own.
The editor of the Global
Times, a state owned hawkish tabloid, today came up with his second video
warning India of war if it doesn't withdraw its troops from Doklam unilaterally.
In his first video message last week, he was seen aggrandizing China’s military
strength vis-a-vis India, drawing parallels like ‘if China and India engage in
military conflict, the PLA has an overwhelming advantage’’. The hawkish
newspaper, a sister publication the People's Daily, Chinese Communist Party's
official newspaper, has run a number of anti-India editorials laden with
rhetoric ever since soldiers from the Indian Army and the PLA first faced off
on the Doklam plataue last month.
Doklam that China considers a
part of its Donglang region has been a long running territorial dispute between
Bhutan and China and Bhutan even issued a demarche to China on construction of
road in the area by the PLA. Indian troops entered the area to prevent the road
construction with India informing China that it was against the agreement of
maintaining the status quo in the area as agreed in the past.
But an autocratic and expansionist
China refused to budge, and in fact, unleashed an intense propaganda war
against India aimed to dislodge the legally valid Indian claims and employed
every possible propaganda tool in its arsenal, be it the high pitched ‘war
possibility’ threat or arrogant responses delivered by its higher level
officials including daily briefings of its foreign ministry or indiscriminate
verbal firing rounds by its official publications.
©SantoshChaubey
