BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2020) The People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) increased a combat readiness level to the second-highest possible last week after a shooting incident on the border with India, however, the alert was eased after the two nations' foreign ministers met in Moscow, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing military sources.
The China-India confrontation flared up in May, leaving dozens of soldiers injured on both sides. The tensions came to a head in mid-June, when 20 Indian servicemen died in fighting that also led to an unspecified number of fatalities among Chinese troops. In late August, both sides again accused each other of provocations and illegal border crossings. The most recent incident took place in early September when warning shots were fired near one of India's forward military positions in the region.
According to the media outlet, the PLA increased its combat readiness to the second level out of four possible, which meant the deployment of more weapons and troops to the front line. The last time such a high level was employed in 1987 when a border row in the Sumdorong Chu valley pushed the two countries to the brink of war.
"Since the combat readiness level was raised, commanders, officers and soldiers have been working around the clock, carrying out extra training and drills. The PLA mobilised more troops and weapons systems to the Line of Actual Control [the formal name for the disputed China-India border] in preparation for the worst," the source said, as cited by the newspaper.
Another source noted that the raised combat readiness was eased only after the September 10 meeting of Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, held in Moscow on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. The top diplomats said in a joint statement the next day that India and China had agreed to protect the existing border agreements and avoid the further escalation of tensions.
Border conflicts are a permanent fixture of India-China relations, as the countries do not have a marked border but rather the Line of Actual Control, created after the 1962 war between the nations.
