New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday that the situation in the India-China border areas "gets disturbed from time to time when Chinese forces diverge from established patrolling patterns," placing the responsibility for recurring friction along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Beijing, a day after the chief of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police confirmed that face-offs with Chinese troops were continuing in Arunachal Pradesh.
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal made the remarks at the ministry's regular media briefing while responding to questions about comments by ITBP Director General Shatrujeet Kapur, who told troops on Thursday that ongoing face-offs with China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) at several locations in Arunachal Pradesh were still under way.
Jaiswal declined to discuss the specifics of the incidents Kapur had flagged, saying such questions should be directed to the Ministry of Defence. He added: "Both sides continue to use existing diplomatic and military mechanisms to resolve outstanding issues and avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation along the Line of Actual Control."
The two sides, he said, had also agreed to discuss ways to improve understanding of the LAC in appropriate areas for better border management. "I would also like to emphasise that the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations," Jaiswal said.
Kapur's disclosure had drawn attention because it marked the first time an Indian government official had publicly confirmed on the record that face-offs were occurring in the Arunachal Pradesh sector.
Addressing personnel at an ITBP base in Alwar, Rajasthan, on Thursday, ahead of the force's 65th Raising Day on October 24, the ITBP chief — who is set to retire at the end of this month — said: "In the past few days, a situation arose where a face-off happened at several locations in Arunachal, and it still continues."
The ITBP chief said a newly raised elite formation, the Shaurya commandos, had been mobilised during the ongoing face-offs and would now be deployed in every border battalion. He also said the force had raised drone platoons across all its border units and prepared a new "strike course" designed to train personnel for intensive engagements of the kind seen in the Galwan Valley in 2020.
Describing China as India's "biggest adversary," Kapur said traditional methods of warfare were no longer sufficient to counter Beijing, and that the force was stepping up its modernisation drive with a sharper focus on emerging warfare technologies and specialised training.
The ITBP is one of the key formations responsible for guarding sections of the 3,488-km-long LAC, stretching from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. In recent years, the government has described the situation along the border as "stable" following disengagement from several friction points that arose after the violent clash in Galwan in June 2020, in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
Kapur's remarks have brought ground-level friction back into the news cycle even as New Delhi and Beijing continue to hold diplomatic and military-level conversations.
The friction in Arunachal Pradesh is not new. Reports indicate that tensions had earlier erupted between patrols of the Indian Army and the PLA at Taksing, a remote village in Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Subansiri district, during late July this year. According to reports, patrol parties of the two countries came face to face before the Chinese forces withdrew in early August.
Following those developments, military commanders of the two sides held their first round of talks in the eastern sector on September 6 and 7, just days before Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India for the BRICS Summit hosted by New Delhi on September 12 and 13.
The phrase Jaiswal used — that the border gets disturbed when Chinese forces "diverge from established patrolling patterns" — is not new to Indian statements, but its deployment at Friday's briefing turned a standing formulation into a direct answer to a live question about who is responsible for the current friction.
By declining to elaborate and referring operational questions to the defence ministry, the spokesperson kept the public record thin while stating the government's position without hedging.
The formulation also reflects the structural reality of the unsettled frontier: both sides patrol areas where their claim lines overlap, and any departure from mutually understood patrolling routines can quickly produce face-to-face encounters at altitudes above fourteen thousand feet.
Each such encounter carries an inherent risk of escalation, which is why both sides maintain diplomatic and military mechanisms to resolve outstanding issues and avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation.
Kapur's address also looked forward. He said the Shaurya commandos, raised as an elite rapid-response formation, would be embedded in every border battalion, giving the force an organic capability to respond to the kind of intensive, close-quarter engagements that defined the Galwan clash.
The drone platoons being raised for all border units are part of the same shift: a border force moving from static manning of posts toward surveillance-led, technology-enabled domination of difficult terrain. The new "strike course," he said, would prepare personnel specifically for the high-intensity encounters that the force has faced along the LAC.
The ITBP itself is central to this posture. It is one of the primary formations guarding the India-China border, deployed across the full length of the LAC, and its chief's public remarks carry weight precisely because the force's leadership seldom speaks about live incidents.
Kapur, who is retiring at the end of this month, chose his farewell-period address to troops ahead of the 65th Raising Day to place the reality of continuing face-offs on the public record — a choice that prompted the government, a day later, to frame the official explanation through the foreign ministry.
That explanation rests on a formulation with a long history. Indian officials have for years said that peace along the border depends on both sides adhering to established patterns of patrolling and behaviour — a reference to the protocols, understandings and confidence-building measures built up through a series of agreements since the 1990s.
When those patterns are followed, the overlapping patrols of the two sides pass without incident; when one side departs from them, the risk of confrontation rises sharply. Friday's statement was, in effect, an assertion that the present disturbances fall into the second category.
The timing of the exchange also matters for the wider relationship. New Delhi hosted the BRICS Summit on September 12 and 13, with Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting India — a setting that normally encourages both capitals to project stability. That military commanders had to meet in the eastern sector on September 6 and 7, in the first such round of talks for the sector, underscored that ground realities were already demanding attention.
The Taksing face-off in late July, where patrol parties came face to face in a remote village of Upper Subansiri district before the Chinese side withdrew in early August, showed how quickly routine patrols could turn into standoffs.
With the ITBP chief confirming that face-offs continue and the foreign ministry attributing disturbances to Chinese patrolling deviations, the government's message this week has been two-fold: the border situation remains unsettled at the ground level, and New Delhi's expectation remains that Beijing adhere to established patterns of conduct along the LAC.
Whether the ongoing diplomatic and military mechanisms can translate that expectation into calmer patrols in the months ahead will shape the trajectory of India-China ties, which the ministry has repeatedly linked to the state of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.
(Reporting based on The Print, NDTV and The Times of India.)