Why Chinese and Indian Troops Clash in the Himalayas

China and India, two nuclear-armed powers with a combined population of 2.7 billion, gathered thousands of troops at a disputed border in the Himalayas in 2020 -- the latest confrontation in a long history that includes a war in 1962 and a confrontation near Bhutan in 2017. Weeks of skirmishes led to the first deadly clashes along the un-demarcated border in four decades. A year on, the dispute lingers, talks to resolve the matter remain deadlocked and both sides are shoring up their forces.

In May 2020, China surprised India by deploying troops in three main locations, two of them in Ladakh, a remote part of northernmost India abutting Tibet (an autonomous region of China) and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The 3,488 kilometer (2,167 miles) border is ill-defined and the reason for the maneuver was unclear, but earlier actions by India regarding the territories of Ladakh, whose people are culturally close to Tibet, and Kashmir had drawn angry responses from its neighbors. China has accused India of seeking “to undermine its territorial sovereignty.”