Arun Jaitley warns China to back off: ‘The India of today is different’

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has responded to China’s jibe about New Delhi needing to learn from its 1962 military debacle.

“If they are trying to remind us, the situation in 1962 was different, the India of today is different,” Jaitley said at the India Today Midnight Conclave.

A People’s Liberation Army spokesperson had said yesterday that it would escalate the current border row if Indian troops did not withdraw from “Chinese territory” and told India not to “clamour for war”.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) told China of serious security implications for India by entering Doklam region of Bhutan, reported the Indian Express. The paper reported that the MEA statement described China’s actions as a “significant change of status quo”, a “violation of a 2012 understanding”, and would lead to “serious security implications”.

Jaitley further said that the Bhutan government had made it clear that China was trying to impinge on their land, and that this was “absolutely wrong”.

“After the statement of the government of Bhutan, I think the situation is absolutely clear. It is Bhutan’s land, close to the Indian border, and Bhutan and India have an arrangement to provide security.” On June 16, a People’s Liberation Army entered the Doklam area in Sikkim and attempted to construct a road. India said that a Royal Bhutan Army patrol attempted to dissuade them from this unilateral activity, refuting China’s June 26 claim that Indian border troops crossed the boundary line in the Sikkim sector of the Indo-China border.

The comments came amidst a stand off between Indian and Chinese troops in the Doklam area of Sikkim.“To say we will come there and grab the land of some other country is what China is doing and it is absolutely wrong,” Jaitley said.