17th Round of Indian Army – China PLA Talks on Chushul-Moldo Border

Indian Army 14 Corps Commander held Flag level talks with Chinese People’s Liberation Army Commander for 8 hours after a gap of 5 months in Eastern Ladakh.

The talks are important as they have taken place after long gap but only 11 days after the serious  clash in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh and a joint statement by both countries has been released on 22 December.

In the talks, as per the press release, Indian side raised issues of vacation of Depsang intrusions and the attempted Chinese violation in Arunachal Pradesh during the long discussions. Significantly, during this clash nearly 60 PLA soldiers were captured by the Indian Army and released following the Chinese request of an immediate flag meeting.

The Army released the PLA soldiers but is reported to have kept custody of the over 100 sophisticated riot equipment weapons as a significant breakthrough in the Eastern Ladakh sector. The press release indicates,  the two sides agreed to stay in “close contact”, maintaining dialogue through military and diplomatic channels and work out a mutually acceptable resolution of the remaining issues at the earliest.

Holding of the talks after 5 months gap does indicate that China has noticed the strong and instant response of the Army in Arunachal Pradesh and China’s own growing medical crisis due to explosion of Covid Omicron cases and deaths of 1000s of Chinese in North Eastern China.  Abiding with a decision taken at the 16th round of military talks, the two sides had carried out disengagement from Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area in September earlier.

On Arunachal, responding to the media questions on whether similar incidents happened in the past in the region, Arindam Bagchi, the spokesman for Ministry of External Affairs said there were incidents when Indian troops stood firm and “you are aware of that.. we have been emphasising that our soldiers will stand firm to guard our frontiers”.