NEW DELHI: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a senior congressional leader have reprimanded China for bullying behaviour towards India during a military standoff on their disputed border.

Thousands of Indian and Chinese troops have faced each other for weeks at three or four locations in the western Himalayas after Beijing’s forces intruded into Indian territory, according to Indian security officials and local media.

China denies it breached the “Line of Actual Control”, as the 3,488 km de facto border is known, and says there is stability in the area near the Galwan River and Pangong Tso lake in the remote snow deserts of India’s Ladakh region.

In comments released by the State Department, Pompeo told the American Enterprise Institute think tank that China’s moving of troops to the line of control echoed similarly heavy-handed behaviour over the coronavirus, South China Sea and Hong Kong.

“These are the kinds of actions that authoritarian regimes take,” he said.

One possible trigger for frictions is India’s construction of a road near the Galwan valley to narrow the gap with China’s superior network of roads that it built years ago, Indian and foreign military experts say. China is opposed to any Indian construction in the area, saying it is disputed territory.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2020