It is really unfortunate for Beijing to be distracted by the dangerous border stand-off with India when it needs to focus on the free-falling China-US relations as part of a multi-front crisis diplomatically and economically,' he said. 'Relations with India rank high in China's foreign policy agenda, especially those pertaining to its periphery region. Pang Zhongying, an international affairs analyst at the Ocean University of China, was quoted as saying that India had transformed itself in the past two decades from a giant in South Asia to an Asian power. With India's rise as a regional power, the shifting balance of power between India and Pakistan and the emergence of India's alliance with the US, New Delhi has occupied a higher place in Beijing's agenda. While Chinese President Xi Jinping and his top diplomats have sought to further improve bilateral relations to an unprecedented level in the last two years, Beijing's boldness in reinforcing its troops at the LAC has underlined its growing dilemma about its neighbour, the author said. Shi, citing a few political observers, said that it would be a 'nightmarish scenario' for Beijing to ratchet up tensions and further alienate New Delhi in the face of worsening ties with Washington and the biggest international backlash in decades over China's diplomatic overreach and its culpability in the coronavirus pandemic. Along with an undisclosed number of Chinese casualties, twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the face-off in eastern Ladakh, where the two countries also fought their brief but bloody 1962 War.

Both sides have instead amassed large numbers of troops and weapons, along the LAC, since the Galwan valley clash. While the two countries have shown interest in de-escalation and agreed to disengage, there is little sign so far that heightened tensions will dissipate soon. Shi Jiangtao, a former diplomat and author of the article, said that China's attention was already fixed on a new Cold War with the United States when the new tension on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India erupted last month following the deadliest clash between the two sides in over 50 years. HONG KONG: The violent stand-off between the Indian and Chinese border troops in Eastern Ladakh last month has raised questions about China's strategic calculations on the rise of India and also prompted fears about armed conflicts between the nuclear powers, according to an analytical piece published in South China Morning Post.

World in conflict skirmish