New Delhi:
Indian and Chinese soldiers will hold a flag meeting next Monday to try and resolve a face-off over the contested border between the two countries. (
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For a week now, Indian and Chinese troops have been facing each other in eyeball to eyeball positions.
Despite a marathon 12-hour meeting on Monday, Indian and Chinese delegations failed to arrive at a satisfactory result. The standoff began almost a week ago at Chumur, which stands at the intersection of the international border and the Line of Actual Control or LAC. Chinese soldiers brought in in heavy construction equipment and a large labour force to try and build a road up to the border. (
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India objected immediately and strongly, sending its troops as close to the disputed site as possible. After five days of deadlock, China sought a flag meeting, which took place on Monday but remained inconclusive. (
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Perhaps to divert focus from Chumur, the Chinese side objected to an irrigation canal being built at Demchock about 80 km away and sent hundreds of civilians to protest the work being done by Indian civilians. The standoff at Demchock, unusually, is now between Indian and Chinese civilians. (
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The decades-old border dispute has resurfaced as Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a three-day India visit today with a six-hour trip to Ahmedabad, where he will have dinner with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.