Indian military on high alert in Himalayan mountains

India has put its army, air force and navy on high alert on the disputed border with China and in the Indian Ocean.

An Indian army convoy makes its way along a mountain pass in Ladakh on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

India has put its army, air force and navy on high alert on the disputed border with China and in the Indian Ocean, even as the countries’ top diplomats committed to lowering tensions in the wake of deadly clashes this week.

China has also stepped up reinforcements and conducted high-altitude live fire drills in Tibet since violent clashes on Monday night claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of People’s Liberation Army troops in the deadliest conflict between the two sides in half a century.

The PLA drill involved the simulated removal of enemy fortified positions on a 4700m-high plateau in a joint operation by the air force and a brigade of 7000 soldiers, according to The South China Morning Post.

Additional Indian troops and weapons had also been deployed at key points along the 3488km Line of Actual Control, Indian media reported, while the navy had been ordered to increase its deployment in the Indian Ocean — a move China could view as a threat to its access to the critical Malacca Strait shipping lane.

Both countries have agreed to de-escalate border tensions that erupted into deadly “hand-to-hand conflict” on Monday night when the two sides clashed over what Beijing claims was singular “provocation” by Indian soldiers, and New Delhi says was PLA troops’ failure to honour an agreement to withdraw from advanced positions. While no shots were apparently fired, dozens of soldiers died from injuries sustained from rocks and nail-studded clubs, as well as exposure to sub-zero temperatures. Some who died reportedly fell or were pushed off a steep ravine.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke on Wednesday night, both lodging strong protests over the clashes but agreeing to “cool” tensions, while senior army officers met on the LAC to try to defuse the situation.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivistava later issued a statement warning China against making “exaggerated and untenable claims” on the sovereignty of the Galwan Valley, after Mr Wang issued a statement saying India “must not under­estimate China’s firm will to safeguard its territorial sovereignty”.

India has accused Beijing of trying to shift the status quo on the LAC by claiming sovereignty over Galwan Valley, an area that India has patrolled as its own for decades.

Some analysts see the deadly clashes in the Galwan Valley as a consequence of China’s rising ­territorial aggression on its border with India and in the South China Sea, where it has trained radar guns on a Philippines naval ship, sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat, harassed a Malaysian survey ship and sailed aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait.

There has also been speculation that China’s latest border incursions were spurred by the completion of India’s 255km all-weather road to the Daulat Beg Oldie airbase.

Ananta Aspen fellow Pramit Pal Chaudhuri told The Australian that India had suffered “an increasing number of border incidents as China has tried to slow down the road” connecting ­Ladakh’s capital, Leh, to the airbase at India’s northern tip.

The area is one of the most vulnerable on the LAC, west of China-controlled Aksai Chin, which is Beijing’s only land connection to Tibet, Xinjiang and the China-held Karakoram Pass. It is also near the Nubra valley, a supply point for Indian forces deployed in a decades-long face-off with Pakistan on the Siachen glacier.

Griffith University’s Ian Hall said the Daulat Beg Oldie airstrip posed a clear threat to China “because if Indians were able to put aircraft or ground troops there, they could potentially take the Pass”. The new road had made the Galwan Valley a critical asset to Beijing because of its position midway between the contested Pangon Lakes and Daulat Beg Oldie — “right in the middle of where the PLA could potentially cut the road”.