Amid the war of words involving the hierarchies of India and China over the prevailing LAC standoff at Eastern Ladakh, it's much disturbing to learn that five Arunachalee youths serving as porters for Indian Army have been reportedly abducted by the PLA. This has once again exposed the real face of China which can be levelled as ‘evil beyond imagination’. It will also trigger the perennial fear that is it all about Eastern Ladakh alone or there lies more devious plans where the actual target is Arunachal. There is a long history, based on which this eventuality cannot be ruled out so easily. It is therefore an extreme necessity to keep an hawk’s eye uninterruptedly over what transpires across the state’s borders.

The current situation in the troubled zone of Eastern Ladakh is boiling indeed given the fact that the Foreign Secretary himself has described it as “unprecedented” since the 1962 Indo-China. In Moscow it has been a virtual head-on clash between the two Defence Ministers. If Rajnath Singh had conveyed to Beijing  that actions of the Chinese troops involving concentration of large number of troops coupled with an ultra-aggressive behaviour and continuous attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the disputed boundary were in violation of bilateral agreements, the Chinese counterpart Gen Wei has blamed India as “entirely responsible” for the tensions and has vowed not to  give up “an inch of its territory”. This is really a difficult situation now when more doors of negotiations are getting closed day by day. It is a common understanding in the complex subject of diplomacy that restraint can never be a one-way traffic and to make any fruitful headway, it must come in equal measurement from the nations involved. But, China, so far has not shown any genuine mood and as such there is a growing belief or rather fear, that it may very well snowball into a conventional war.

Arunachal stands in a very sensitive position in the current mess and a war will surely have deep repercussions here. For decades, China has claimed and officially circulated that the state belongs to them, conveniently rechristening it as ‘South Tibet’. There are occasional incursions by China in the state and quite a number of media reports have also hinted that large swathes of Arunachal’s lands may have been grabbed. The current abduction will compel to revisit the past and since high-level negotiations are on, it will be prudent to raise these issues with China for acceptable clarifications.

Ladakh might be the centre-point of trouble that has resulted in convergence of all attention. But Arunachal remains equally vital and critical  and there must be renewed talks on the Chinese ‘adventures’ here.