In the latest escalation between two nuclear powers (aside for the US and North Korea of course), the Indian Army has ordered the evacuation of a village close to the Doklam India-Bhutan-China tri-junction amid to a standoff between Indian and Chinese solders, India's News 18 reports. This takes place just days after, as we reported earlier this week, China turned the war threat amplifier up to '11' by threatening India (in an article published a Chinese state-controlled newspaper) that it could conduct a "small-scale military operation" to expel Indian troops from a contested region in the Himalayas.
As a reminder, the latest standoff started in June, after Chinese troops started building a road on a remote plateau, which is disputed by China and Bhutan. Indian troops countered by moving to the flashpoint zone to halt the work, with China accusing them of violating its territorial sovereignty and calling for their immediate withdrawal.
After adding a large number of troops to the region, China then sharply escalated when a Chinese Ministry of Defense warned explicitly that Indian troops must leave the contested area if they do not want war.
Then, on Monday, the Independent reported that Chinese and Indian media have taken a strident approach, with an article in the Chinese state-owned Global Times quoting a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences saying China is preparing to initiate a "limited war" to push Indian soldiers out of the area.
Which brings us to today when according to Indian media sources, a few hundred villagers living in Nathang village have been asked to vacate their houses immediately. Nathang is 35 km from the site of the two-month old standoff between Indian and Chinese troops.
Meanwhile, the state-controlled Chinese media "has in the last few weeks been beating war drums quite incessantly" as the Indian press puts it. In a recent editorial published in China Daily, India was warned that
"The countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun, and the clock is ticking away the time to what seems to be an inevitable conclusion."
If North Korea launches an attack that threatens the United States then China should stay neutral, but if the United States attacks first and tries to overthrow North Korea's government China will stop them, a Chinese state-run newspaper said on Friday.
China, North Korea's most important ally and trading partner, has reiterated calls for calm during the current crisis. It has expressed frustration with both Pyongyang's repeated nuclear and missile tests and with behavior from South Korea and the United States that it sees as escalating tensions.
The widely read state-run Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, wrote in an editorial that Beijing is not able to persuade either Washington or Pyongyang to back down.
"It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardize China's interests, China will respond with a firm hand," said the paper, which does not represent government policy.
"China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral," it added.
"If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so."
China has long worried that any conflict on the Korean peninsula, or a repeat of the 1950-53 Korean war, could unleash a wave of destabilizing refugees into its northeast, and could end up with a reunified county allied with the United States.
The Global Times said China will "firmly resist any side which wants to change the status quo of the areas where China's interests are concerned".
"The Korean Peninsula is where the strategic interests of all sides converge, and no side should try to be the absolute dominator of the region."
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