‘It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop’. That was according to Confucius. And it’s an idea that will be on the minds of Indian policymakers with regard to some of China’s territorial claims.
I mentioned yesterday the territorial dispute in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, an area that China claims and which it has been developing infrastructure in. It’s an ongoing issue that looked like it could flare up last year with reports of Chinese incursions, and there are periodically reports about China slowly pushing into the territory.
Well, it seems the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is also worried about Chinese incursions into Ladakh, a region in Jammu Kashmir in northern India, moves which it suggests are essentially an effort to make a de facto claim on the territory.
According to a report posted on ExpressBuzz:
‘[A] BJP delegation which visited the region today demanded that the Government open the area to tourism to defeat the “Chinese design of grabbing the land by inches.”’
The article goes on to say:
‘After the briefing by the Army’s Leh-based 14 Corps Commander Lt Gen S K Singh and other officials, [Party spokesman] Rajeev Pratap Rudy said the latest strategy that Chinese have developed is that they have pushed their nomads and grazers into Indian territory.
‘“They (Chinese) are fighting a war through nomads and grazers. There are no conflict zones or day-to-day confrontation with armed forces but they are fighting the battle through nomads on grazing pastures…they are pushing nomads here and there…It’s all about pasture land and gazers and they stand solidly behind these nomads….so they are inching through grazing land,” he said.’
Of course proving that nomads are being ‘encouraged’ to push into Indian territory is extremely difficult. Which would be one of the beauties of such a policy.