Conflict trends

China-India

Military tensions persisted between India and China amid an ongoing Himalayan border dispute that led to the death of at least twenty Indian troops and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers in June. This week both sides accused each other of firing warning shots in Ladakh’s Pangong Lake area, which if confirmed would mark the first use of firearms anywhere on the 3488km-long border since 1975. Crisis Group expert Pierre Prakash says several rounds of talks that produced repeated commitments to mutually disengage over the course of this four-month-long standoff have so far failed to ease tensions on the ground or break the dangerous cycle of mutual recrimination. The use of firearms, if confirmed, is particularly alarming, and could signal this decades-old dispute is entering uncharted territory.