China and India are once again at each other’s throats over an unmarked border in the Himalayas.
But this time, oddly, nobody seems to know why.
In mid-April, around 30 Chinese troops marched across the de facto border between China and India and pitched tents 19 kilometers inside Indian territory, just when relations between the two were going so well. The Indian government, which has so far exercised relative restraint, was accused by opposition politicians as being “weak, cowardly and incompetent” for not driving the troops off. The Chinese, on the other hand, deny that their soldiers ever crossed into Indian territory.
China and India haven’t been able to agree on how to carve up the Himalayas since they fought over the border in 1962, but this latest development has baffled experts.