Galwan Valley Standoff & Future Trends In PLA Transgressions

There were 1,025 transgressions by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between 2016 and 2018. There were 273 transgressions in 2016, 426 in 2017 and 326 in 2018. The first four months of 2020 witnessed 170 Chinese transgressions across the LAC, including 130 in Ladakh. There were only 110 such transgressions in Ladakh during the same period in 2019. Nearly one-third of PLA-BDR transgressions in the western sector of the LAC happen in the Panggong Tso Lake. According to official data, Panggong Tso, the 135km-long lake, one-third of which is controlled by India, recorded 25% of the total number of PLA-BDR transgressions in the last five years across the LAC. Trig Heights recorded 22% while Burtse/Depsang Bulge accounted for 19% of all transgressions. Incidentally, the site at Galwan River saw only six PLA-BDR transgressions during the same period. While there was no transgression in 2019, four were recorded in 2017, and one each in 2018 and 2016. At Panggong Tso, transgressions by the PLA-BDR almost doubled from a five-year low of 72 in 2018 to 142 in 2019. These transgressions occurred both in the waters of the lake, and along its northern banks. There were 112 transgressions in 2017, the year the two countries were locked in a tense 73-day faceoff at Doklam on the Sikkim-Bhutan border. It was 164 and 77 in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

Although India and China share a boundary that stretches 3,488km from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, official data shows that 80% of the transgressions by China across the LAC since 2015 have taken place in four locations—three of them in eastern Ladakh in the western sector. Along with Panggong Tso, Trig Heights and Burtse have witnessed two-thirds of the total transgressions across the LAC. New areas of PLA-BDR forays into India-controlled territory came up in 2019—the Doletango area opposite Dumchele suddenly saw 54 PLA-BDR transgressions in 2019, after having recorded only three transgressions in the past four years. In the eastern sector, the highest number of transgressions by the PLA-BDR—14.5% of the total–was recorded in Dichu Area/Madan Ridge area. Transgressions recorded in other areas in the eastern sector were very low, including Naku La in Sikkim, which saw two PLA-BDR transgressions each in 2018 and 2019.

In early May 2020 Indian Army (along with Indo-Tibetan Border Police) and PLA-BDR troops exchanged blows on two occasions, once near Panggong Tso Lake in eastern Ladakh and in the Naku La sector in Sikkim. In both incidents, personnel from both sides suffered injuries. There was also movement of PLA-BDR troops to eastern Ladakh after India began constructing a road in the Galwan River area. There was no transgression by PLA-BDR patrols in this area in the past two years. The site of the ongoing road construction is near the confluence of Shyok and Galwan rivers, some 200km north of Panggong Tso Lake. The PLA-BDR is objecting to the construction of a new road that branches off the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road along the river-bank towards the LAC. The DSDBO road connecting Daulat Beg Oldie, at the base of the Karakoram Pass, with Shyok and Darbuk, was completed a year ago and provides India greatly improved connectivity. The 255km-long road, which had to be realigned after the initial alignment was found unsuitable, runs along the Shyok and Tangtse rivers.

At Panggong Tso, the PLA-BDR has deployed additional rapid interception craft (RIC) on the lake and stopped the movement of IA and ITBP soldiers beyond Finger 2 on the northern bank of the lake. The mountains there jut forward in major spurs, which the IA calls Fingers. India claims that the LAC is co-terminus with Finger 8, while China claims that the LAC passes through Finger 2. The area between the two differing perceptions is the territory which both opposing patrols try to dominate through regular patrolling. The IA and ITBP physically control the area up to Finger 4. The number of PLA-BDR RICs has gone up three times—it had earlier been using only three boats. The IA also has a similar number of RICs to dominate the 45km-long western portion of the lake, which is under Indian control.

Since the IA and ITBP physically control the area up to Finger 4, this was regarded as a “provocative move” by the PLA-BDR following the “disengagement” after a physical altercation between troops of both sides near Finger 5 on the night of May 5-6, 2020. The PLA-BDR has been objecting to construction of a vehicle track by India in the same area. While PLA-BDR soldiers patrol the area in light vehicles on a motorable road built in 1999, when India was busy with OP Vijay in northern J & K, IA and ITBP soldiers patrol on foot till their perception of the LAC. The China-built road in that area is rather narrow and has very few turning points. So, when Indian patrols challenge the PLA-BDR patrols and ask them to go back from our area, the latter physically cannot turn their vehicles and it leads to more acrimony.

In addition to the above, there is a situation on the LAC in the Hot Springs sector, which is an ITBP sector. An IA Company had moved closer to PP-14 and PP-15 in 2015 after a minor incident, but this has always been a settled area between India and China. Thus, it is worth considering if China’s posture there is linked to the incidents at Panggong Tso, just as the Depsang standoff of April 2013 in northeastern Ladakh was linked to a consequent standoff at Chumar in southern Ladakh in September 2014. However, some IA officers maintain that the incidents in Panggong Tso are “typical LAC activity witnessed during summer months” when “some new units have been inducted” and “operational familiarisation and occupation of winter-vacated posts” take place. Consequently, incidents  are “localised” in nature due to “different perception of the LAC by the two sides”.

The only location (in the central sector of the LAC) to record significant PLA-BDR transgressions is Barahoti in Uttarkhand, which recorded 21 transgressions in 2019 and 30 in 2018. Such transgressions will increase on both land and in the air in the years to come, not just in Uttarkhand, but also in Himachal Pradesh, in order to minutely monitor the IA’s and Indian Air Force’s (IAF) growing presence in these two Indian states as they gear up for undertaking offensive joint high-altitude plateau warfare operations. The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) has since 2011 been using one of its four SAR-equipped Tu-154M platforms to monitor developments in the demilitarised area in Barahoti pastures in Chamoli district of Uttarkhand, while the PLAGF, regularly uses Z-9EC helicopters equipped with a gimballed optronic sensors for transgressing into India-controlled airspace in the same area. Such actions will now also take place in Tashigang inside Himachal Pradesh.

Ongoing Standoff At Galwan Valley Showing PLA-BDR Dispositions

Ongoing Standoff At Galwan Valley Showing IA-ITBP Dispositions

Areas Where PLA-BDR Patrols Transgress Into Ladakh

Trig Heights near Chip Chap River: 35 22 22.14 N, 78 2 15.74 E & Burtse in Depsang Bulge: 35 18 9.89 N, 78° 0 44.17 E

Galwan Valley: 34 46 10.37 N, 78 12 44.45 E

Gogra Hot Springs: 34 18 29.96 N, 78 58 53.01 E

Panggong Tso Lake: 33 43 14.99 N, 78 45 49.33 E

Spanggur Gap: 33 33 51.12 N, 78 46 53.13 E

Demchok: 32 41 51.43 N, 79 27 28.74 E

Chumur: 32 37 55.60 N, 78 36 4.56 E

Roundabout Near Kongka la/Hot Springs/Gogra Post: 34 20 11.97 N, 79 1 59.79 E

Opposing Road Connectivity Networks Along LAC

Source: https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/OccasionalPaper_42b.pdf