Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Ram Madhav on Tuesday cautioned against a hurried approach to solving boundary disputes such as the one between India and China, PTI reported.
“Don’t be in a hurry for a [Indo-China boundary] solution,” he said at the launch of a book titled, China Bloodies Bulletless Borders, by retired Colonel Anil Bhatt. “Don’t be too much after the legacy that it should be solved in my lifetime. It is not going to be solved because you are not dealing with just any other country, you are dealing with a civilisation, a cultural nation [China].”
India and China have been locked in a border standoff since their troops clashed in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in June 2020. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the clash. China had put the number of casualties on its side at four.
Last month, reports had emerged that China is building a second bridge around the Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh and this could potentially help the People’s Liberation Army to quickly mobilise its troops in the region.
Pangong Lake was one of the prominent flashpoints when border tensions between the two countries had flared up in 2020. One-third of the nearly 160 km-long lake lies in India, the other two-thirds in China.
During Tuesday’s event, Madhav said that one should not try to understand China by its actions but by thinking about the rationale behind its decisions, PTI reported.
He also talked about the differences between the traditional approach and cultures of the two nations. Beijing, the RSS leader said, believes in achieving multiple targets together instead of one.
“So they will engage in building dams, they will also engage you at the border...and they will also talk to you,” he said, according to PTI.
He added that “proactive diplomacy together with strong ground posturing” is the way to deal with China.
Last week, United States Army’s Pacific Commanding General Charles A Flynn had called the level of Chinese activity in eastern Ladakh as “eye-opening” and questioned its intentions. “And so much, like across all of their military arsenal, one has to ask the question, why,” he added.
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