On Monday, both sides, which were locked in a 75-day stand-off at Doklam mutually disengaged from Doka La where Indian troops had prevented a PLA team from building a road.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying acknowledged the agreement but spiced it up with remarks about Chinese troops hovering around the Doklam area.
India is redrafting, and in some cases tightening, rules for business in sensitive sectors such as power and telecom making it difficult for Chinese firms to compete.
Rear troops will be moved out first. Due to the dangerous terrain and poor visibility in high altitude, movement of Army vehicles will happen during the day.
Strangely, while Rajnath’s statement would have coincided with the negotiations, China responded to his statement by adopting a more aggressive stance.
Several political groups are becoming active in advocating a boycott of Chinese goods and this movement can get galvanised with Chinese misbehaviour with us.
An overhang like the Dokalam dispute helps none. While China will be looking to drive the agenda on its terms, an intransigent India is the last thing it wants on its hands.
India lags behind China in border infra but a war will be a lot less uneven than Chinese hawks anticipate and fighting could mean heavy toll for both armies.
“About a month back a sizeable Chinese force had reached up to Finger Four,” said sources, adding that this could have been for “area familiarisation”.
China has alienated all its neighbours and, with the breakdown of ties with North Korea, has no friend except Pak. That's why Doklam assumes more significance.
China cannot start a war with India, even if it's a localised conflict over a small piece of high-altitude land that remains hard to access most of the time.
Let us be clear about one thing - far from losing control, this has, in fact, been one of the best managed crises by India's ministry of external affairs.
China obfuscates the Dokalam issue by suddenly finding great virtue in colonial era unequal treaties which it rejects as in the case of the McMahon Line.
Chinese leadership had calculated that road project would provide them the opportunity to coerce Bhutan into opening up diplomatic relations, and pulling Thimphu out from India's orbit.
To peacefully resolve the impasse, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that both the sides should first pull back their troops and hold dialogue.
Global Times in an article said that the Chinese learn about India's economic development only via media reports which offer a limited understanding of the country.
While existential stakes drove India to halt China's construction of a strategic highway through Doklam, Beijing made a strategic miscalculation by intruding there.
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