{"id":26053,"date":"2020-05-26T11:06:40","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T05:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/chinas-silence-on-border-a-contrast-to-doklam\/"},"modified":"2020-05-26T11:06:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T05:36:40","slug":"chinas-silence-on-border-a-contrast-to-doklam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=26053","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s silence on border, a contrast to Doklam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2017, there was almost daily coverage on Doklam in what was a campaign by State-controlled media to whip up public sentiment<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s government and media have maintained a studied public silence on developments along the Indian border through much of the past week, in a marked contrast to Beijing\u2019s almost daily public messaging through the 2017 Doklam stand-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of May 26, there has been little coverage on the border in Chinese media, another contrast from 2017 when there was almost daily coverage on Doklam in what was a campaign by State-controlled media to whip up public sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That approach has been largely absent so far. The silence from both New Delhi and Beijing has been seen by observers as suggesting a desire to keep space for de-escalation, although that could change the longer the stand-off continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, Chinese analysts had described the\u00a0Doklam stand-off\u00a0as being qualitatively different from other India-China border situations as it was not taking place on territory disputed between the two countries. China was emphasising in statements then that India had crossed the border into Bhutan, on land that is disputed between Bhutan and China and to which India had no claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is not the case in this instance, although analysts have said the current tensions are also unprecedented in their own way, given the heavy deployments, simultaneous stand-offs in at least four points, and aggressive behaviour that led to injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deliberations between military commanders of the two sides have been on-going on a daily basis, in addition to other communication channels. Talks have so far failed to defuse the situation, with both sides digging in and adding to their deployments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only two statements from China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), on May 19 and May 22, were issued to the Indian media in responses to queries. Unlike in the past, these were neither published on its website nor circulated to the Chinese media. The MFA also answered a question in its daily briefing on May 21 on comments made by U.S. diplomat Alice Wells on the border situations, describing it as \u201cnonsense\u201d. The spokesperson repeated the May 19 statement and added it had \u201cnothing to do with the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No questions on India or the border were taken up during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi\u2019s annual press conference on May 24, an event that is usually carefully choreographed and questions are selected in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s charge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On May 19, the MFA said\u00a0India had \u201ccrossed\u201d the LAC\u00a0in the western section and Sikkim \u201cto enter Chinese territory\u201d. It accused India of blocking normal patrols and attempting to unilaterally change the status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another statement on May 22 said that with the border never having been demarcated, problems occurred on occasion. It said China opposed infringements across the border. Diplomatic channels were open and it believed the issue could be properly resolved through negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The English language Global Times<\/em> on May 18 published the only article so far on the border situation, saying Chinese troops \u201chave bolstered border control measures and made necessary moves in response to India\u2019s recent, illegal construction of defence facilities across the border into Chinese territory in the Galwan Valley region\u201d. It cited \u201ca source close to Chinese military\u201d. A Chinese version of the article, published on the Sina website\u2019s military portal, referred to the Galwan Valley \u201cas China\u2019s territory\u201d, although this was missing in the MFA\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another article on May 25 in Global Times <\/em>said China\u2019s \u201cfirst domestically developed unmanned helicopter focused on plateau operations recently made its maiden flight\u201d and \u201ccould help safeguard China\u2019s southwestern borders with India.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The May 18 article said \u201cthe Chinese troops\u2019 new move, believed to be the strongest military response to India\u2019s illegal trespassing incident along the border since the Doklam stand-off, demonstrates the strong determination of the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army to defend its sovereign territory,\u201d the article said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the latest border friction started by the Indian side won\u2019t lead to another Doklam stand-off,\u201d it added, \u201cwhich brought serious tensions between China and India in 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With inputs from <\/em>The Hindu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2017, there was almost daily coverage on Doklam in what was a campaign by State-controlled media to whip up public sentiment China\u2019s government and media have maintained a studied public silence on developments along the Indian border through much of the past week, in a marked contrast to Beijing\u2019s almost daily public messaging through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}