On September 10, 2020, the foreign ministers of India and China met in Moscow on the sidelines of the Beijing-headquartered Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The face-to-face meeting, not without some encouragement from the host–Russia, lasted for over two hours and a half.
Earlier, on September 5, 2020, the Defence Ministers of the two Asian giants met in Moscow, both attending the SCO meeting, and there was no joint statement. Each side came out with its own statement saying that it had urged the other side to behave.
The Trigger
China started massing troops along the Galvan valley in April/May. On 15 June, in a violent clash, 20 soldiers of the Bihar regiment were killed. We still do not know the casualties on the Chinese side as China, as a policy, does not let out such information. Outraged, India decided to send in more troops.
Both sides have increased the build-up with artillery, tanks, missile systems and thousands of troops. Satellite imagery and credible news sources point to the build-up of armoured units largely along the valley floors, possibly because of summer snow melt. Furthermore, there are credible reports of army build up further east along the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim.
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