Uncertainty in the eastern sector : The Sino-Indian boundary question
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Tondonba Nepram
Recently, an Arunachal tribal body, Nah Welfare Society (NWS), in a memorandum dated 26th June, submitted to the Deputy Commissioner of Upper Subansiri district has alleged that Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made encroachments in areas of he said district. NWS has named 5 regions which are Oying (Asaphila area), Paniar (Chujarta area), Marpan (Marnafe), Potrang Lake and Tindingtang (TG) as per Arunachal24.in. Allegedly, these were areas that they had access to which have come under the occupation of the Chinese PLA by means of various constructions ranging from roads, bridges to even military camps. This poses a genuine risk if verified to be true.
The Indian Army, on 29th June has denied any such allegations and has termed the claims as “incorrect and without any basis.” Union Minister Kiren Rijiju (who represents Arunachal West) and others distinguished “intrusion” from routine “transgressions” that occur because the boundary is not fully demarcated.He noted India’s delayed but accelerating border infrastructure catch-up.
But the state administration is not on the same page. The Indian Express reported that on the 29th of June, Arunachal Pradesh Home Minister Mama Natung had announced plans to form a committee to verify the claims, carefully adding that no Indian territory would be ceded to China. That announcement alone complicates the Army’s flat denial.
On 5 July, NWS general secretary Tache Chader clarified that the memorandum was never meant for public release. It had been shared on social media without the society’s consent, by one of its own members, and Chader said NWS held “the highest regard” for the Army, with no intent to accuse it of anything.
The memorandum reportedly includes photographs, though these haven’t been independently verified. If they hold up, the Army has a harder case for sticking to denial while a state-level committee looks into the same claims.
The LAC is divided into 3 sectors – the western, middle and eastern sector has witnessed multiple skirmishes and major conflicts between the two countries. The various skirmishes and conflicts encompass the Longju incident of 1959 to the Galwan valley clash in 2020 and it will very likely be unwise to say that the two countries would not clash in the future pending a boundary settlement. There are frequent flare ups along the LAC due to the nature of LAC. In the eastern sector, India claims the international boundary to be the McMahon line while China claims it to be further down south of the McMahon line. Even the actual length of the LAC is disputed, while India claims the total length is 3,488km , China considers it to be 2000km.
As far as can be observed personally through online map services such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Copernicus Browser, etc, there seems to be a recent build up in the Taksing area very near to the McMahon line. It can be observed from satellite imagery that the area is well within the McMahon line according to Google Maps accessed on 10th July,2026 which displays the SOI (Survey of India) map to its Indian users. While for Apple Maps accessed on the same day, the area is within Chinese territory. What India claims to be the actual LAC is not publicly disclosed and as such any individual hoping to do independent verification will find it very difficult.
The afore-mentioned area where new infrastructural development has taken place as seen from satellite images provided is connected by road to a ‘100-home civilian village’ built in Chinese controlled Indian territory (since Longju incident of 1959). This village was even shown to be mentioned in a Pentagon report in 2021. From satellite images, it can be inferred that the new infrastructural establishments are those of military or at the very least far from civilian only infrastructure as observed from 2 helipads in the site. While this was the case for this one location, verification of the 5 specific locations named in the NWS memorandum would require either official confirmation from Indian authorities or ground access that, by NWS’s own account, is remote and difficult to reach.
It isn’t exactly possible to independently confirm whether China has actually encroached near Taksing and it is not because the claims are dubious, but because India is yet to publish where it even claims the LAC to be terming it to be sensitive. That opacity is what let the Army flatly deny the allegation while, days later, the state government moved to investigate it. It is not easy to maintain institutional accountability on a boundary the public isn’t allowed to see.
One must also keep in mind that the issue between the two countries is not strictly the boundary question but also of geopolitical rivalry as well and as such view any action through that lens. China, whose GDP once matched that of India has now crossed India’s current GDP by 4.8 times as per StatisticsTimes.com, becoming one of the most influential players in the Asian region. This serves to significantly constrain India’s path to great power status. China has no incentive to fix the opacity problem, because the grey-zone created by India’s opacity works in its favour. As such, China appears adamant in keeping the boundary issue alive but compartmentalises it from pursuing trade, economic engagement and multilateral cooperation. This freezing status of LAC by China has continued despite several institutional agreements on the boundary question such as the BPTA of 1993, BDCA of 2013 and other CBMs, which at one point facilitated map exchanges between the two countries. The situation is very likely to thaw until ‘the conditions are ripe.’ India has time and again sought for a formal clarification and definitive demarcation but to no avail. And it is very unlikely to culminate into a peaceful solution to the boundary question in the near future unless a sudden shift in the geopolitical landscape occurs. The Sino-Indian territorial and boundary dispute has the potential to flare up into a wider border conflict as observed in the Galwan valley incident which was contained to some extent but the next one might be one that puts the strategic balance in South Asia at risk.
In short, the India-China or Sino-Indian boundary dispute remains the longest unresolved boundary dispute as of date, without even so much as an agreed upon boundary line. The recent NWS episode is the latest flare-up of this decades old territorial dispute. It highlights the experiences of border communities amid differing boundary perceptions. The incident reflects the complex reality of boundary question in the eastern sector of the LAC with official Indian assessments maintaining that there has been no recent PLA encroachment or new camps of the type alleged, while the underlying disagreement over sovereignty remains unresolved.
Recently, an Arunachal tribal body, Nah Welfare Society (NWS), in a memorandum dated 26th June, submitted to the Deputy Commissioner of Upper Subansiri district has alleged that Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made encroachments in areas of he said district. NWS has named 5 regions which are Oying (Asaphila area), Paniar (Chujarta area), Marpan (Marnafe), Potrang Lake and Tindingtang (TG) as per Arunachal24.in. Allegedly, these were areas that they had access to which have come under the occupation of the Chinese PLA by means of various constructions ranging from roads, bridges to even military camps. This poses a genuine risk if verified to be true.
The Indian Army, on 29th June has denied any such allegations and has termed the claims as “incorrect and without any basis.” Union Minister Kiren Rijiju (who represents Arunachal West) and others distinguished “intrusion” from routine “transgressions” that occur because the boundary is not fully demarcated.He noted India’s delayed but accelerating border infrastructure catch-up.
But the state administration is not on the same page. The Indian Express reported that on the 29th of June, Arunachal Pradesh Home Minister Mama Natung had announced plans to form a committee to verify the claims, carefully adding that no Indian territory would be ceded to China. That announcement alone complicates the Army’s flat denial.
On 5 July, NWS general secretary Tache Chader clarified that the memorandum was never meant for public release. It had been shared on social media without the society’s consent, by one of its own members, and Chader said NWS held “the highest regard” for the Army, with no intent to accuse it of anything.
The memorandum reportedly includes photographs, though these haven’t been independently verified. If they hold up, the Army has a harder case for sticking to denial while a state-level committee looks into the same claims.
The LAC is divided into 3 sectors – the western, middle and eastern sector has witnessed multiple skirmishes and major conflicts between the two countries. The various skirmishes and conflicts encompass the Longju incident of 1959 to the Galwan valley clash in 2020 and it will very likely be unwise to say that the two countries would not clash in the future pending a boundary settlement. There are frequent flare ups along the LAC due to the nature of LAC. In the eastern sector, India claims the international boundary to be the McMahon line while China claims it to be further down south of the McMahon line. Even the actual length of the LAC is disputed, while India claims the total length is 3,488km , China considers it to be 2000km.
As far as can be observed personally through online map services such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Copernicus Browser, etc, there seems to be a recent build up in the Taksing area very near to the McMahon line. It can be observed from satellite imagery that the area is well within the McMahon line according to Google Maps accessed on 10th July,2026 which displays the SOI (Survey of India) map to its Indian users. While for Apple Maps accessed on the same day, the area is within Chinese territory. What India claims to be the actual LAC is not publicly disclosed and as such any individual hoping to do independent verification will find it very difficult.
The afore-mentioned area where new infrastructural development has taken place as seen from satellite images provided is connected by road to a ‘100-home civilian village’ built in Chinese controlled Indian territory (since Longju incident of 1959). This village was even shown to be mentioned in a Pentagon report in 2021. From satellite images, it can be inferred that the new infrastructural establishments are those of military or at the very least far from civilian only infrastructure as observed from 2 helipads in the site. While this was the case for this one location, verification of the 5 specific locations named in the NWS memorandum would require either official confirmation from Indian authorities or ground access that, by NWS’s own account, is remote and difficult to reach.
It isn’t exactly possible to independently confirm whether China has actually encroached near Taksing and it is not because the claims are dubious, but because India is yet to publish where it even claims the LAC to be terming it to be sensitive. That opacity is what let the Army flatly deny the allegation while, days later, the state government moved to investigate it. It is not easy to maintain institutional accountability on a boundary the public isn’t allowed to see.
One must also keep in mind that the issue between the two countries is not strictly the boundary question but also of geopolitical rivalry as well and as such view any action through that lens. China, whose GDP once matched that of India has now crossed India’s current GDP by 4.8 times as per StatisticsTimes.com, becoming one of the most influential players in the Asian region. This serves to significantly constrain India’s path to great power status. China has no incentive to fix the opacity problem, because the grey-zone created by India’s opacity works in its favour. As such, China appears adamant in keeping the boundary issue alive but compartmentalises it from pursuing trade, economic engagement and multilateral cooperation. This freezing status of LAC by China has continued despite several institutional agreements on the boundary question such as the BPTA of 1993, BDCA of 2013 and other CBMs, which at one point facilitated map exchanges between the two countries. The situation is very likely to thaw until ‘the conditions are ripe.’ India has time and again sought for a formal clarification and definitive demarcation but to no avail. And it is very unlikely to culminate into a peaceful solution to the boundary question in the near future unless a sudden shift in the geopolitical landscape occurs. The Sino-Indian territorial and boundary dispute has the potential to flare up into a wider border conflict as observed in the Galwan valley incident which was contained to some extent but the next one might be one that puts the strategic balance in South Asia at risk.
In short, the India-China or Sino-Indian boundary dispute remains the longest unresolved boundary dispute as of date, without even so much as an agreed upon boundary line. The recent NWS episode is the latest flare-up of this decades old territorial dispute. It highlights the experiences of border communities amid differing boundary perceptions. The incident reflects the complex reality of boundary question in the eastern sector of the LAC with official Indian assessments maintaining that there has been no recent PLA encroachment or new camps of the type alleged, while the underlying disagreement over sovereignty remains unresolved.