Foreign Policy - China Can No Longer Deny that India is a Real Threat on the Line of Actual Control
Well if if they mean threat as in whimpering, then yes
In a year that challenged policymakers across the world, one development will perhaps have the most significant long-term impact in the Indo-Pacific—the ongoing standoff between India and China in the Himalayas. Chinese forces have shown no inclination to back away from the positions they have occupied along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which divides India- and China-controlled territory in Ladakh region, since April. Meanwhile, Indian troops have been amassing at the disputed border, with New Delhi demanding comprehensive restoration of the status quo ante. Several rounds of military and diplomatic talks have failed to yield any results, underlining the high stakes for both sides.
2020 may well be the year when romanticism about Sino-Indian ties finally died. Many in New Delhi evinced a naive belief that, despite all the evidence to the contrary,
India would be able to manage China diplomatically (
??? not the other way around?) and that it was possible to keep the shadow of the border dispute from darkening the larger relationship. Even after the 2017 standoff between the two militaries in Dolkam at the India-Bhutan-China border, in which the People’s Liberation Army razed stone bunkers that the Royal Bhutan Army had constructed, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to build a personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This was as much about the practical necessity of dealing with a much stronger neighbor as it was about shaping the bilateral engagement beyond disputes. It worked for a while, but Beijing clearly had other plans.
