China Invades India: Tensions Mount as platoon of soldiers slip across border to claim disputed territory

• Chinese troops set up camp in Ladakh region in middle of April, it’s claimed

• Slipped across the boundary into India in middle of night, India says

By Daily Mail Reporter

A two week Chinese incursion has left India on the verge of crises, it has today been reported.

India says Chinese troops set up a camp on its side of the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region in the middle of April.

The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials.

They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection. 

They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory.

So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said.

China denies any incursion, but Indian officials say that for two weeks, the soldiers have refused to move back over the so-called Line of Actual Control that divides Indian-ruled territory from Chinese-run land, leaving the government on the verge of a crisis with its powerful northeastern neighbor. 

Indian officials fear that if they react with force, the face-off could escalate into a battle with the feared People’s Liberation Army. But doing nothing would leave a Chinese outpost deep in territory India has ruled since independence. 

‘If they have come 19 kilometres into India, it is not a minor LAC violation. It is a deliberate military operation. And even as India protests, more tents have come up,’ said Sujit Dutta, a China specialist at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi. 

‘Clearly, the Chinese are testing India to see how far they can go,’ he said. 

That is not China’s stated view.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2318389/Two-Chinese-incursion-leaves-India-verge-crises.html#ixzz2SBAfBUrj
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