India ‘to send 10,000 more troops to border’ with China and dares Beijing to ‘bat an eyelid’

China says India’s fresh deployment is ‘not conducive to safeguarding peace’ and easing tensions

India and China hold a meeting at Pangong lake region in Ladakh on the India-China border in 2021 (AP)

India is likely to send 10,000 more troops to its disputed border with China in a move that would potentially exacerbate tensions between the two Asian giants amid a years-long border standoff.

India and China which share a poorly demarcated 3,440km-long border, the source of a bitter dispute.. Tensions reached a peak in June 2020 when 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese forces were killed following a brutal skirmish on the Himalayan border.

Since then, military leaders from the two countries have held many rounds of talks to resolve tensions but have yet to resolve core disagreements on key points of friction.

A contingent of 10,000 more soldiers is now being redirected from the country’s western border and deployed to the frontline with China, a senior Indian official told Bloomberg.

The deployment will be in addition to the thousands of soldiers who were rushed to the Line of Actual Control, the d facto border with China, after incidents of violent skirmishes with the People’s Liberation Army in 2020.

An additional group of 9,000 soldiers, which was previously assigned to the contested Chinese border, will now operate under the newly established combat command.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Friday said India’s reported plan to send more soldiers to the border was “not conducive to easing tensions”.

“China is committed to working with India to safeguard the peace and stability of the border areas,” Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said.

Indian army vehicles move in a convoy in the cold desert region of Ladakh, where India and China are locked in a military standoff, (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

“We believe that India’s practice is not conducive to safeguarding peace and is not conducive to easing tensions.”

Ms Mao added that “India‘s increase in military deployments in border areas does not help to calm the situation in the border areas or to safeguard peace and safety in these areas.”

Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said that India was “in a position to give a befitting reply” to anyone “who bats an eyelid at us”.

Mr Singh’s comments came in response to a question over the nearly four-year-long border row with China and concerns over Beijing’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean region.

“If you turn the pages of history, you will see that India has never attacked any country of the world or occupied even an inch of land of any country. But if any country bats an eyelid on India then the country is now in a position to give a befitting reply,” Mr Singh said during a defence summit hosted by NDTV.

The tense border dispute has impacted diplomatic ties between the two countries, with China’s Xi Jinping snubbing India’s G20 summit.

In only known exchange between the leaders of the two countries in the past three years, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Mr Xi held informal talks on the sidelines of Brics summit in Brazil last year. Both leaders agreed to “expeditious disengagement and de-escalation” along the disputed border.

The two sides held their 21st round of military talks in February this year designed to agree disengagement from the remaining areas of the border standoff, but did not reach a substantial breakthrough.

A press release by the Indian foreign ministry said they agreed to “maintain peace and tranquillity on the ground in the border areas in the interim”.