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1.媒體來源:
The New York  Times

2.記者署名:
Jeffrey Gettleman is the South Asia bureau chief, based in New Delhi. He was
the winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for international reporting.

3.完整新聞標題:
China and India Brawl at 14,000 Feet Along the Border

4.完整新聞內文:
As China projects its power across Asia, and along the disputed India-China
border in the Himalayas, India is feeling surrounded. Both sides insist they
don’t want a war, but thousands of troops have been sent.

NEW DELHI — High in the Himalayas, an enormous fistfight erupted in early
May between the soldiers of China and India. Brawls at 14,000 feet along
their inhospitable and disputed frontier are not terribly unusual, but what
happened next was.

A few days later, Chinese troops confronted Indian soldiers again, this time
at several other remote border points in the Himalayas, some more than 1,000
miles apart. Since then both armies have rushed in thousands of
reinforcements. Indian analysts say that China has beefed up its forces with
dump trucks, excavators, troop carriers, artillery and armored vehicles and
that China is now occupying Indian territory.

No shots have been fired, as the de facto border code dictates, but the
soldiers have fought fiercely with rocks, wooden clubs and their hands in a
handful of clashes. In one melee at the glacial lake Pangong Tso, several
Indian troops were hurt badly enough that they had to be evacuated by
helicopter, and Indian analysts said Chinese troops were injured as well.

Nobody thinks China and India are about to go to war. But the escalating
buildup has turned into their most serious confrontation since 2017 and may
be a sign of more trouble to come as the world’s two most populous countries
increasingly bump up against each other in one of the bleakest and most
remote borderlands on earth.

President Trump, unsolicited, stepped in on Wednesday, offering on Twitter to
mediate what he called “a raging border dispute.”

For India, the Chinese incursions and maneuvers at multiple points along the
more than 2,100-mile border have raised suspicions of a concerted campaign to
exert pressure on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

With the world consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, China has acted
forcefully to defend its territorial claims, including in the Himalayas. In
recent weeks, the Chinese have sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat in the South
China Sea; swarmed a Malaysian offshore oil rig; menaced Taiwan; and severely
tightened their grip on the semiautonomous region of Hong Kong.

The confrontation with India “fits a broader pattern of Chinese
assertiveness, ” said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, noting that it was the fourth flare-up
since China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, rose to power at the end of
2012.

India’s government has disclosed few details about what has actually
happened, saying in a statement only that it was the “Chinese side that has
recently undertaken activity hindering India’s normal patrolling patterns.”

Mr. Modi, who is usually outspoken in defense of his country’s interests,
appears intent on avoiding an escalation, analysts said.

“The military skirmishes and standoffs with India seem to reflect Beijing’s
calculation that India’s still increasing Covid-19 infections, coupled with
its economic downturn, place it in no position to wage a border conflict,”
said Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based
Center for Policy Research.

All this, he added, could also be “Beijing’s way of sending a political
message” to India not to get too close to the United States and to back off
its criticism of the way China has handled the coronavirus.

Even before the scuffling, India was feeling increasingly hemmed in by China’
s expanding economic and geopolitical influence in South Asia.

To the west, the Chinese are working with Pakistan, India’s archenemy, and
recently agreed to help construct an enormous dam on the border of
Pakistan-administered Kashmir, an area India claims.

To the east, China’s new friend, Nepal, just produced a map that challenges
where the Indian border lies; India has blamed China for stirring up the
trouble. Nepal was once a close ally, but after India encouraged a punishing
trade blockade in 2015, Nepal drifted closer to China.

To the south, deep in the tropics, the Chinese have taken over an island in
the Maldives, a few hundred miles off India’s coast. Indian military experts
say China has brought in millions of pounds of sand, expanding the island for
possible use as an airstrip or submarine base.

“Obviously, the Chinese aim is to pressurize India,” said D.S. Hooda, a
retired general in India’s army.

China’s foreign ministry has blamed India for the recent tensions but tried
to play down the confrontation. That is in stark contrast to similar border
skirmishes in 2017, when the two countries squared off for 73 days over
another contested Himalayan border region near Bhutan, leading to a dangerous
spike in nationalistic sentiment on both sides.

“The Chinese border troops are committed to upholding China’s territorial
and sovereignty security, responding resolutely to India’s trespassing and
infringing activities and maintaining peace and tranquillity,” a spokesman,
Zhao Lijian, said after the first public reports of clashes emerged in
mid-May.

He urged India to “refrain from taking any unilateral actions that may
complicate the situation.”

Both countries run patrols along the disputed border, known as the Line of
Actual Control, the precise location of which can be blurry. The packs of
soldiers marching up and down the mountains are under strict orders not to
shoot at each other, security analysts said, but that doesn’t stop them from
throwing rocks. Or the occasional punch.

Sometimes, big passing patrols collide. A few years ago, another Indo-China
brawl broke out — and was captured on video — at the same mountain lake
where some of the clashes happened this month.

China has not officially acknowledged any recent deployment of forces to the
Himalayas. But Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the Communist Party,
cited a source close to the People’s Liberation Army in a May 18 article who
said China’s military bolstered its forces in response to what it considered
illegal construction by India in or near Chinese territory.

China has a superior military, which analysts believe could force India to
back down. Ajai Shukla, a former Indian Army colonel, estimated that China
had brought in three brigades of the People’s Liberation Army — amounting
to thousands of troops — and India had deployed around 3,000 reinforcements.

“If they want to evict the Chinese, the Indian Army would have to start a
shooting war,” Mr. Shukla said. He doesn’t think that will happen and added
that India’s options are “limited by not wanting this to escalate.”

Just a few months ago, Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi were sipping fresh coconuts
together during a quick summit meeting in southern India. A good relationship
would help both countries in their aspirations for world power.

Still, they have become increasingly watchful of each other, especially in
the high Himalayas, where few ever go.

India has recently stepped up efforts to improve the roads its military uses
to crisscross the mountain passes in the Ladakh region, on the border of
Tibet. These roads are not easy to build. They snake across a gravelly
landscape of high altitude rivers, glaciers and passes at 17,000 feet above
sea level.

Analysts said that China did not intend to start a war but that it wanted to
frustrate India’s road-building efforts. The race to make these high
mountain roads is becoming increasingly fraught. The 2017 standoff between
India and China began when Indian troops physically blocked a Chinese road
crew in a disputed region claimed by Bhutan, a close ally of India’s.

China is also sensitive about the Indian border because it abuts two regions
within China that Beijing is especially concerned about: Tibet and Xinjiang.

The spark of the recent tensions seems to have been one particular new road
that the Indians have been building to reach a military airstrip at India’s
northernmost border outpost, which was the site of another border standoff in
2013.

The two countries have established mechanisms for resolving border conflicts
since 1962, when they went to war in the Himalayas, with India losing badly.

“There hasn’t been a shot fired in years,” Ms. Madan said, adding that the
last death from a border skirmish happened in 1975.

Still, tensions could easily flare.

“All of this is happening in the area where they fought in the ’62 war,”
she said. “There is a lot of baggage associated with this on both sides.”

5.完整新聞連結 (或短網址):
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/world/asia/india-china-border.html

6.備註:

重點:

1.大陸習近平近期不樂意看到印度跟美國親密的玩在一起,
所以出兵.

2.大陸聯合巴基斯坦,
從印度最弱的邊境防守進軍,也就是西馬拉雅山邊境進攻.

3.大陸軍方目前沒有帶著大型毀滅性武器,但是帶了非常多的大型建設工具,
而且開始拼命蓋各式各樣的建築物.

4.兩邊在湖與海邊開始爭執並開始鬥毆交戰,
兩方都沒有使用具火力的軍事武器,
而是使用木棍,石頭,土塊等等互相投擲.

5.大陸方先宣稱他們在湖與海邊擊傷大量印度軍人,
印度分析師隨後公開表示,
印度也大量擊傷了中國軍人.

6.
印度因為歷史上被中國慘敗過,
所以這次非常不爽,
已開始集結兵力,
全部朝喜馬拉雅山邊境移動.

7.
如果中國不停止侵犯行為,
印度揚言要開始使用火力強大的軍事武器.

8.
美國已開始密切觀察中印雙方情勢,
必要時會出手.

9.
這位記者在2012年得到普立茲獎.



如星海一般,
有沒有中國開始蓋房子,
搶印度地盤,
搶資源,
要擴張領土,
而印度現在很火大
的八卦?

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