India, China Embroiled in World’s Largest Real Estate Dispute

Former foreign secretary S Jaishankar has delinked Chinese transgressions and infrastructure buildup along the border and called it a case of “action-reaction.” Jaishankar told a committee on external affairs, which was headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, that border issue between India and China is the “world’s largest real estate dispute” and the committee should not have an expectation that the transgressions will somehow go away. Jaishankar, whose term ended in January this year, said it was because as we build out border infrastructure, there will be a “little bit of action-reaction where they are concerned.” The former foreign secretary has also said that the transgressions have not gone up and that it was a credit to the militaries of both the countries that the issue is managed without any bloodshed. Jaishankar had made the submission on October 30 last year. The committee had submitted its report on Sino-India relations to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan earlier this month. In its recommendation, the panel said border infrastructure on the India-China border was “grossly inadequate”, despite the marked progress in recent years. “In fact, on a number important sectors, we are dependent on single access routes, a risky proposition in times of conflict. Worse, many roads are not built to withstand military traffic. Chinese had specifically taken advantage of this in 1962 war, and therefore, we ought to draw lessons from the past on this matter,” the committee observed. The transgressions were reported mainly from Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. In some cases Chinese soldiers have been found to have pitched tents a few meters inside Indian territory.