New Atlanticist
Jun 17, 2020
China and India just had their worst clash in forty-five years. What do we know?
By
Shubha Kamala Prasad
On June 15, India and China faced off in a clash along the Line of Actual Control (LAC or the de-facto border in the Ladakh region), resulting in the death of at least twenty Indians and an unknown number of casualties on the Chinese side. This has been the first set of fatalities along the Sino-Indian border since the 1975 Tulung La ambush in present-day Arunachal Pradesh, the easternmost state of India, when four Indian soldiers died. While shots were apparently not fired in this recent exchange, the hand-to-hand combat was deadly. What triggered the worst clash in forty-five years? And how will India respond?