(This article forms a part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)
Indo-China border tensions have drawn the world’s attention, since the Galwan Valley faceoff in 2020, but the U.S.’s recent remarks showed that other powers are more than spectators. The Chinese activity level in eastern Ladakh is “eye-opening” and some of the infrastructure being created in its Western Theatre Command is “alarming”, General Charles A. Flynn, Commander of U.S. Army Pacific, told media in New Delhi. Dinakar Peri and Suhasini Haidar tracked the statements.
His remarks prompted China to respond swiftly, with its Foreign Ministry accusing the U.S. officials of adding “fuel to the fire” and “pointing fingers” and termed it a “despicable act”.
However, U.S. appears to have remain vocal on the issue. Beijing continues to “harden its position” along the border that it shares with India, U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin said while stating that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) adopts a more “coercive and aggressive approach” to its territorial claims.
Top five
- The scandal-prone British Prime Minister has had nine lives in the past, but the latest turmoil has presented him a much stronger challenge – Srinivasan Ramani profiles Boris Johnson.
- Read this profile of Severodonetsk, the last major city in the eastern Luhansk Oblast where the Ukrainian forces still have some presence, by Stanly Johny.
- The Ukraine war and the global food crisis: Why are food prices rising? Does Ukraine have other options of exporting its grain other than the Black Sea routes? – Stanly Johny writes.
- The recent incident of Nupur Sharma’s remarks has highlighted the undeniable danger of unconstrained domestic extremism harming India’s foreign policy objectives, writes Happymon Jacob.
- In the world of global diplomacy, embarrassments, gaffes, and ‘diplomatic incidents’ are par for the course – read Suhasini Haidar’s recollection of diplomatic incidents.
Sri Lanka watch
Kalaiyarasi Sadasivam with Jeevarathinam Priyadharshan. Meera Srinivasan
- An Adani project in Sri Lanka is yet again at the centre of controversy, after a top official of the Ceylon Electricity Board told a parliamentary panel that a renewable energy project in the island’s northern Mannar district was given to the Adani Group after Prime Minister Narendra Modi “pressured” President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
- Growing up in her village in Sri Lanka’s northern Kilinochchi district, Sadasivam Kalaiyarasi had one dream — to play cricket for Sri Lanka. It came true this week, when she made it to the country’s under-19 squad, becoming the first Tamil girl to enter the national cricket arena.
