Amid heightened tensions over the border standoff at Sikkim, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met with Chinese President Xi Jinping today.The meet came a day after one with his counterpart Yang Jiechi where the two held bilateral or one-on-one talks on the sidelines of a summit of top security officials from BRICS - Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa.The Indian government has so far not commented on whether the dispute at Sikkim was discussed.China's State Councillor Yang separately met senior security representatives from South Africa, Brazil and India and "set forth China's position on bilateral issues and major problems", said news agency Xinhua.China says that last month, Indian troops crossed the border at Sikkim to stop the Chinese army from constructing a road on a remote Himalayan plateau it calls Donglang. Bhutan says the region is Doklam, and is part of its tiny kingdom.The row has festered for more than a month as India and China refuse to back down in the distant but strategically key territory.India, a close ally of Bhutan, deployed troops to stop the road construction project, prompting Beijing to accuse India of trespassing on Chinese soil. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj last week said both sides should pull back soldiers to allow talks on the conflict.But China in response warned that it would step up its deployment, and insists that India must withdraw its troops before any proper negotiation takes place."The solution to this issue is simple, which is that the Indian troops back out honestly," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this week.Sarath Chand, the vice army chief, said on Tuesday: "China is expanding its influence across the Himalayas into our neighbourhood despite being an economy five times the size (of India), with such a large standing army... it is bound to be a threat for us in the years ahead."The standoff is a very public sign of India's willingness to push back.India has also voiced concern about another Chinese project: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which will give Beijing access to the Arabian Sea but passes through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The project is part of a massive Chinese global trade infrastructure programme dubbed One Belt, One Road, which India has snubbed. ||||| "safeguarding its territory" + 
 
 NEW DELHI: Miffed at a US article supporting India, China's state-backed media has accused Washington of trying to instigate a military clash between India and China.Two days ago, 'Washington Examiner' carried a column titled "Trump must support India against China" in the Doklam border standoff. The reason? "India-US relations offer special value in our shared ability to deter and counter growing Chinese aggression," said the column in the American publication.That did not make the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times happy."The US seems to be everywhere when conflicts come up and it seldom takes an impartial posture to help address the problems," said a Global Times piece in its 'Observer' section on Wednesday.Global Times cited the Examiner piece, claimed it "unsurprisingly hyped the China threat and extolled the US-Indian relationship" and then extrapolated that this "partiality" represented Washington's stance as well."...partiality is likely to lead to war," the Chinese publication said.Global Times then said this purported US position supporting India mirrors the stance Washington took in the South China Sea issue."There are certain forces in the West that are instigating a military clash between China and India, from which they can seek strategic benefits at no cost to themselves. Washington applied this scheme in the South China Sea disputes," said the Chinese publication.Even as it accused Washington of being partial to New Delhi, it also claimed that Washington is "paying little attention" to it."So far, the Donald Trump administration has paid little attention to US-Indian ties, and their divergences over issues like trade and immigration remain," said the Global Times piece.It added that "it's necessary to note" that the 1962 India-China war had behind it "the invisible hands" of the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union.Nothing will stop China fromthough, said the article in Global Times."Washington won't get any benefits from the escalation of the Sino-Indian confrontation. China won't give up safeguarding its territory because of US interference." ||||| India will suffer worse losses than 1962 if it incites border clash 
 
 The face-off between Chinese and Indian troops in the Sikkim section of the Sino-Indian border seems to be escalating. The Indian military was quoted by Indian media as saying that more troops have been deployed there in a non-combative mode. Indian Defense Minister Arun Jaitley claimed that the India of 2017 is different from the India of 1962. Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, General Bipin Rawat, even said they are fully ready for a two-and-a-half front war - referring to China, Pakistan and internal security requirements. 
 
 
 
 Indian troops have trespassed over the China-Sikkim border, which is viewed as having already been demarcated, and is not a line of actual control. The Indian side has changed arguments several times, first claiming that "China intruded onto Indian territory," but later saying "there was no incursion into our territory," followed by the new excuse that India is helping Bhutan safeguard its territory. India is acting shamelessly before the international community. 
 
 
 
 New Delhi's real purpose is to turn the Donglang area of China into a disputed region and block China's road construction there. The Cold War-obsessed India is suspicious that China is building the road to cut off the Siliguri Corridor, an area held by Indians as strategically important for India to control its turbulent northeast area. India is taking the risk to betray the historical agreement and wants to force China to swallow the result. 
 
 
 
 India should look in the mirror. It was not able to refute the evidence of illegal border-trespassing and coerced its small neighbor Bhutan to shoulder the blame. India has long treated Bhutan as a vassal state, a rare scene under modern international relations. India's illegal border intrusion is not allowed by international law; besides its suppression of Bhutan must be condemned by the international community. The Indian media claimed in recent days that New Delhi "shouldn't abandon Bhutan." India is humiliating the civilization of the 21st Century. 
 
 
 
 The Chinese public is infuriated by India's provocation. We believe the Chinese People's Liberation Army is powerful enough to expel Indian troops out of Chinese territory. 
 
 
 
 We firmly believe that the face-off in the Donglang area will end up with the Indian troops in retreat. The Indian military can choose to return to its territory with dignity, or be kicked out of the area by Chinese soldiers. 
 
 
 
 If New Delhi believes that its military might can be used as leverage in the Donglang area, and it's ready for a two-and-a-half front war, we have to tell India that the Chinese look down on their military power. Jaitley is right that the India of 2017 is different from that of 1962 - India will suffer greater losses than in 1962 if it incites military conflicts. 
 
 
 
 China attaches great importance to domestic stability and doesn't want to be mired in a mess with India. But New Delhi would be too naïve to think that Beijing would make concessions to its unruly demands. 
 
 
 
 Instead of taking immediate action, China still wants to address disputes by peaceful means, a practice that has been maintained for decades, and it is unwilling to face a pattern of confrontation in the border area. But a peaceful solution must lead to legitimate and justified outcomes. We hope India can face up to the hazards of its unruly actions to the country's fundamental interests and withdraw its troops without delay. 
 
 
 
 We need to give diplomatic and military authorities full power to handle the issue. We call on Chinese society to maintain high-level unity on the issue. The more unified the Chinese people are, the more sufficient conditions the professionals will have to fight against India and safeguard our interests. This time, we must teach New Delhi a bitter lesson. 
 
 ||||| Top Chinese and Indian officials met in Beijing amid a tense border stand-off in the Himalayas and an increasingly protracted diplomatic impasse. 
 
 The Thursday meeting between Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval was the first high-level meeting since the weeks-long dispute began in a contested mountainous border area near Bhutan. It was part of a meeting of top security advisers for the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. 
 
 "At present, there are deep and complex changes in the international situation," Yang said at a separate group meeting Friday. "There is an increase in uncertainty and instability." 
 
 China’s Yang Jiechi, center, and India’s Ajit Doval, far right, in Beijing on July 28. Photographer: Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images 
 
 Yang held separate meetings with BRICS NSAs including Doval, in which they exchanged views on "bilateral ties, international and regional hotspot issues." Yang also expounded China’s "principled stance" on "important matters," according to the statement posted on China’s foreign ministry’s website. 
 
 The meeting comes as the two Asian powers jostle for broader geopolitical influence in South Asia. New Delhi is wary of Chinese investments in neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, while Beijing is irked by India’s lack of support for its global Belt and Road infrastructure and trade initiative. 
 
 "Doval’s official purpose is attending the BRICS meetings, but the border dispute will be high up on the agenda because that’s the biggest elephant in the room," said Du Youkang, a former Chinese diplomat based in India and Pakistan, who is now director of the Center for South Asian Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University. "The visit will present the first good and genuine opportunity for both sides to sit down and discuss where we go from here." 
 
 Read more: What’s the China-India Border Stand-Off All About? QuickTake Q&A 
 
 The dispute is at a three-way junction between Bhutan, China’s Tibet and India’s Sikkim. Bhutan accused a Chinese road-building party of crossing into its territory on June 16. India said its troops approached the Chinese party and urged them to "desist from changing the status quo." 
 
 Most observers expect the standoff to be resolved diplomatically, but a sense of rising nationalism in both countries makes it difficult for either side to stand down. That risks prolonging the face-off as troops continue to stare at each other of a September BRICS summit in China’s Xiamen. 
 
 Chinese state-owned media have issued editorials reminding India of China’s victory in a 1962 border war. The Communist Party-affiliated Global Times said India will suffer "worse losses" than in 1962 if it doesn’t stand down and warned New Delhi to "get prepared for all possibilities from a potentially grave escalation of tension in the future." 
 
 On July 24, defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian warned India not to underestimate the country’s armed forces. China’s determination to defend its territory was "unshakable," he said, adding that it’s "easier to shake a mountain than to shake the People’s Liberation Army." 
 
 ‘Harsh’ Rhetoric 
 
 "Chinese rhetoric has remained harsh, rather than softening, and Beijing will want to see how India responds to sustained pressure," said Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI. The Doval visit could lay the groundwork for formal talks but it is unlikely to produce a "quick breakthrough," he said. 
 
 India and China have several contested borders and minor incursions happen from time to time. But this stand-off is the most serious in decades. The dispute is near a sensitive narrow corridor that connects India to its northeast and involves a third country. 
 
 "This is different from previous times, both in terms of the rhetoric and in terms of what they’ve chosen to do," said Shivshankar Menon, a former Indian national security adviser who was involved in previous border negotiations with China. "The Chinese signaling has also changed. They obviously see a function for the Global Times that makes sure that China’s views get into the headlines abroad." 
 
 China’s Confidence 
 
 China has accused Indian troops of illegally trespassing into Chinese territory and said India must withdraw troops before any formal negotiations. 
 
 Indian officials have said they want a peaceful resolution. Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar told a group of diplomats in New Delhi on July 21 that the two countries were still talking, according to one western diplomat. 
 
 China’s statements on the dispute reflect its confidence, according to Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South Asia at the Washington, D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson Center. 
 
 "China on a very fundamental level has the upper hand because of the strength of its armed forces, which are superior to those of India on many levels," Kugelman said. "India, which is intent on avoiding a conflict, is using great caution in its public messaging to avoid further antagonizing its Chinese rival. I imagine New Delhi has been particularly struck by the unusually sharp rhetoric emanating from the Chinese media." 
 
 China will not be the first to budge in this standoff because China believes its military is stronger and its position on the border is indisputable, said professor Zhang Li of Sichuan University’s Institute of South Asian Studies. 
 
 "The risk will only increase if the stand-off lingers on," Zhang said. ||||| The dispute dates to contradictory phrases in an 1890 border agreement between two now-defunct empires, British India and China’s Qing dynasty, that put the border in different places. One gives Bhutan control of the area — the position that India supports — and the other China. 
 
 “This comes down to both countries having a reasonable claim,” said Ankit Panda, a senior editor at The Diplomat, an Asian affairs journal. 
 
 Bhutan and India say that China, by extending its road, is trying to extend its control over an area known as the Dolam Plateau, part of a larger contested area. 
 
 The plateau’s southernmost ridge slopes into a valley that geographers call the Siliguri Corridor but that Indian strategists know as the Chicken Neck. 
 
 TIBET CHINA NEPAL BHUTAN INDIA Dolam Plateau Siliguri Corridor BANGLADESH INDIA MYANMAR 150 Miles TIBET CHINA NEPAL BHUTAN INDIA Dolam Plateau Siliguri Corridor BANGLADESH INDIA MYANMAR 150 Miles 
 
 This narrow strip of Indian territory, at points less than 20 miles wide, connects the country’s central mass to its northeastern states. India has long feared that in a war, China could bisect the corridor, cutting off 45 million Indians and an area the size of the United Kingdom. 
 
 India’s Aggressive Response 
 
 Few countries have been eager to confront China’s regional ambitions as directly with military forces, which has made India’s response to the construction so striking and, according to analysts from both countries, so fraught with danger. 
 
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 But in recent months, India’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has shown that he is willing to flout China’s wishes — and ignore its threats. 
 
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 In April, a top Indian official accompanied the Dalai Lama to the border of Tibet, shrugging off China’s public insistence that the journey be halted. In May, India boycotted the inauguration of President Xi Jinping’s signature “One Belt, One Road” project, saying the plan ignored “core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity.” 
 
 The border skirmish arose even as Mr. Modi visited Washington to court President Trump’s favor as India vies with China for influence in Asia. 
 
 “I hope the Indian side knows what it’s doing, because the moment you put your hand in the hornet’s nest, you have to be prepared for whatever consequence there is going to be,” said Shiv Kunal Verma, the author of “1962: The War That Wasn’t,” about the bloody border conflict the two countries fought that year. 
 
 Chinese officials say the construction of the road was an internal affair because, they say, it took place within China’s own borders. On Tuesday, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, reiterated the country’s warning to India to withdraw as a precondition for any broader talks. “The solution to this issue is also very simple,” he said during a visit to Thailand, addressing the Indians directly. “That is, behave yourself and humbly retreat.” 
 
 Bhutan, Caught in the Middle 
 
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 Bhutan, which joined the United Nations in 1971, does not have diplomatic relations with China. It has always been closer to India, particularly after fears stemming from China’s annexation of Tibet, another Buddhist kingdom, in the middle of the 20th century. 
 
 Since then, India has played a central role in the kingdom’s administration, contributing nearly $1 billion in economic and military aid annually in recent years. China has sought to woo Bhutan with its own offers of aid, investments and land swaps to settle border disputes. 
 
 Two weeks after the construction began, Bhutan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it violated earlier agreements, and called for a return to the status quo. 
 
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 “Bhutan has felt uncomfortable from the start,” said Ajai Shukla, a former army colonel and consulting editor for strategic affairs at Business Standard, a daily newspaper in India. “It does not want to be caught in the middle when China and India are taking potshots at each other. Bhutan does not want to be the bone in a fight between two dogs.” 
 
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 The confrontation, meantime, has soured already tense relations. 
 
 Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi both attended the recent Group of 20 meeting in Germany but did not hold a meeting, one on one, that might have defused tensions. India’s national security adviser is expected to attend a meeting in Beijing this week, which analysts say could signal whether any face-saving compromise is possible. 
 
 Mr. Xi is preparing for an important Communist Party congress in the fall that will inaugurate his second five-year term as president and consolidate his political pre-eminence. Given the unbending nature of Chinese statements, few analysts believe he would do anything that would seem weak in response to India’s moves. 
 
 “It may be harder to make concessions until after that gathering,” Shashank Joshi, an analyst at the Lowy Institute, wrote in an essay posted on Friday, “while it may even suit Beijing to keep the crisis simmering through this period.” ||||| Doklam plateau + 
 
 NEW DELHI: Trying to bring down rising temperatures caused by a tense stand-off with China on the, India on Thursday reiterated the promise of a "development partnership" with China based on the " Astana consensus".MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay referred to Sushma Swaraj 's comment in Rajya Sabha on Thursday about building a development partnership with China."The basis should be the Astana consensus, which had two components — first, that positive India-China relations are good for the region and the world and are a factor of stability; and second, that differences should not become disputes."The stridency of Chinese rhetoric has been progressively matched by an equally conciliatory tone by India. Foreign secretary, S Jaishankar used this in a recent speech in Singapore, and since then an "Astana consensus" has been regularly rolled out by government functionaries.Coming even as Ajit Doval and Yang Jieche meet in Beijing, it is intended to convey that India is not spoiling for a fight with China. It does not imply that India would give up its ground positions, but means that a search for a diplomatic resolution is seriously underway.Vijay Gokhale, India's ambassador to China, has been the pointperson to engage the Chinese government in Beijing, and sources said he has been holding regular meetings with different sections of the government.In the same spirit, the government told Parliament that India "is also engaged with the government of the People's Republic of China through diplomatic channels to maintain peace and tranquillity in accordance with various bilateral agreements, memorandum of understanding, protocol and joint statement of 1993, 1996, 2003, 2005, 2012 and 2013 and is committed to finding an amicable resolution acceptable to concerned countries."Explaining the current crisis, Swaraj, answering questions in Parliament, said they had "conveyed to the Chinese side that their actions in Doklam area amount to a significant change in status quo which is not in consonance with the bilateral understandings between India and China under the framework of the Special Representatives on the Boundary Question since the Doklam area is directly relevant for determination of the tri-junction point between India, China and Bhutan."
– China and India are in the midst of a potentially volatile border dispute centering on just 34 square miles and an unpaved road. Last month, Indian troops confronted Chinese workers trying to extend a road in a contested area known as the Doklam Plateau at the point where China, India, and Indian ally Bhutan meet. Both Bhutan and China have a claim to the area because of an ambiguous 1890 border agreement. China has vowed to avoid talks until Indian forces withdraw, but India isn't backing down, bringing the two countries, both of which have nuclear weapons, "near the brink of conflict," reports the New York Times. The latest: The advantage: Experts say China has the upper hand because of the strength of its armed forces, per Bloomberg. And it apparently knows it. Addressing India, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says the solution is "very simple. That is, behave yourself and humbly retreat." The road ahead: A scholar at the American Foreign Policy Council sees similarities between this border dispute and another that led to war between China and India in 1962. He tells the Times that while a negotiated settlement is most likely, war is possible. Veiled threats: Editorials appearing in Chinese state-owned media have stressed China's victory in the 1962 Sino-Indian War. One published in the Global Times notes India "will suffer greater losses than in 1962 if it incites military conflicts." India's response: While New Delhi is holding strong, the Times of India notes "the stridency of Chinese rhetoric has been progressively matched by an equally conciliatory tone by India." 'Chicken neck': India's problem is that an armed conflict could result in China taking control of a strip of land near the disputed area, which connects India to its northern territories. The Times notes the loss of this land, known as the "chicken neck," would mean "cutting off 45 million Indians and an area the size of the United Kingdom." Suspected US involvement: An editorial in China's Global Times suggests Washington is "instigating a military clash between China and India, from which they can seek strategic benefits at no cost to themselves," per the Times of India. A resolution in the works? A top Indian official met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday as part of a larger meeting with representatives from other countries, reports NDTV. It isn't clear what was discussed.