Even as Defence Minister Rajnath Singh urged China to respect the international border and not attempt to unilaterally change the status quo of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), an unflinching Beijing made an audacious claim on Saturday that India stood no chance of winning a war between the two countries if there were to be one.
Singh met his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Moscow on Friday.
“We must remind the Indian side that China’s national strength, including its military strength, is much stronger than India’s. Although China and India are both great powers, when it comes to the ultimate competition of combat capability, the Indian side will lose. If a border war starts, India will have no chance of winning,” China said in an editorial on its mouthpiece Global Times on Saturday,
The meeting between Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh and Wei Fenghe on Friday lasted for 2 hours and 20 minutes, during which the Defence Minister blamed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for its aggressive behaviour along the LAC and trying to ruthlessly transgress into Indian territory even after being warned several times.
“We hope that the defence ministers’ meeting will be a turning point for the two countries to come back to the consensus of the leaders’ meeting. Each side will make its due effort to reduce tensions on the border,” the editorial further said.
The editorial preposterously states that Indian policies on border issues are getting dictated by public opinion and nationalism.
“Indian public opinion is too deeply and widely involved in border issues. The Indian troop has been obviously kidnapped by domestic nationalism. Therefore, in addition to the joint control of the border dispute between China and India, India should also manage public opinion and nationalism, and make the best choice for its country and its people. The problem now is that India has drawn an aggressive line on the border issue, misinterpreting China’s desire to maintain peace and stability on the border as a weakness that can be exploited by threatening to wage a border war ‘at any cost’,” the editorial claimed.
Source: Timesnow.com
