India Border Area with China Becomes Fragile, Dangerous, Could Develop into Armed Clash

Indian Foreign Minister Subramaniam Jaishankar said on Saturday that the situation between India and China in the Ladakh region in the Himalayan mountain range is fragile and dangerous, as the armed forces of both sides are deployed close to each other in some areas.

At least 24 soldiers were killed in clashes between India and China in the Himalayas in mid-2020, but rounds of diplomatic and military talks contained the confrontations.

Violence erupted in the eastern sector of the undemarcated border between the two nuclear-armed Asian powers last December but did not result in any deaths.

"The situation remains in my opinion very fragile because there are places where our forces are deployed very close to each other, so in terms of military assessment the situation is very dangerous," Jaishankar said in a forum for India Today magazine.

He added that Indo-Chinese relations cannot return to normal before the border dispute is resolved in line with the September 2020 principled agreement he reached with his Chinese counterpart.