Less than one-and-a-half months after Xi Jinping visited India for the BRICS Summit, speaking against the backdrop of efforts to stabilise relations between Asia’s two largest nations, Chinese and Indian troops were reported to be facing off at several locations along the disputed Himalayan frontier in Arunachal Pradesh.

The encounters, according to Shatrujeet Kapur, director general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), were continuing even as he praised the newly introduced commando platoons for their performance in confrontational situations.

Beijing’s response offered little indication that it intended to change its position. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said on Monday that Beijing had consistently abided by bilateral agreements and understandings, conducting routine patrols and management activities to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maintain border stability.

The language was at its diplomatic best, but the fact remains that this is not the first, nor possibly the last, time that India and China will face off in the ‘High Himalayas’. China presents its patrols as legitimate exercises of sovereignty, while India regards certain Chinese movements as attempts to alter the situation on the ground.

Since neither side has ever managed to mutually delineate the entire Line of Actual Control (LAC), despite umpteen rounds of talks, and both sides have fundamentally different ideas about where their respective territories begin and end, the dispute is one which will always be ready to erupt every once in a while.

Arunachal Pradesh At The Centre Of Tensions

However, the latest friction has also acquired a different edge and significance. Chinese commentators have taken this opportunity to seize on India's proposed 11,200-megawatt Siang Dam in Arunachal Pradesh to revive Beijing's territorial claims, arguing that the state's rivers and natural resources are strategically important to China.

The convergence of........

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