One of the possible triggers for the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) escalating tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, is the construction of the 255-km long Darbuk-Shyokh-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) all-weather road. This road runs parallel to the LAC, meandering through elevations ranging between 13,000 ft and 16,000 ft, took India’s Border Roads Organisation (BRO) almost two decades to construct.
Strategic importance of DSBO Road
This road connects Leh to DBO, virtually at the base of the Karakoram Pass that separates China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region from Ladakh. DBO is the northernmost corner of Indian territory in Ladakh, in the area better known in Army parlance as Sub-Sector North.
DBO has the world’s highest airstrip, originally built during the 1962 war but abandoned until 2008, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) revived it as one of its many Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) along the LAC, with the landing of an Antonov An-32. In August 2013, the IAF created history by landing one of its newly acquired Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 transport aircraft at the DBO ALG, doing away thereafter with the need to send helicopters to paradrop supplies to Army formations deployed along the disputed frontier.
The Chinese build-up along the Galwan River valley region overlooks, and hence poses a direct threat to the DSDBO road.
The DSDBO highway provides the Indian military access to the section of the Tibet-Xinjaing highway that passes through Aksai Chin. The road runs almost parallel to the LAC at Aksai Chin, the eastern ear of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state that China occupied in the 1950s,
To the west of DBO is the region where China abuts Pakistan in the Gilgit-Baltistan area, once a part of the erstwhile Kashmir principality.
This is also the critical region where China is currently constructing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), to which India has objected. In addition, this is the region where Pakistan ceded over 5,180 sq km of PoK to China in 1963 under a Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement.
Indian BRO engineers have constructed 37 prefabricated military truss bridges along it to make it an all weather road.
The Shyok river itself is a tributary of the Indus, flowing through northern Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan. It eventually re-joins the Indus at Keris, east of Skardu.
De-escalation and the way forward
The token mutual de-escalation of the two armies, ahead of a series of bilateral consultations between senior military and other officials, is expected to be completed over an extended period. The withdrawals are subject to reciprocal endorsement.
In the Wuhan (2018) and Mahabalipuram(2019) summits, both India and China had reaffirmed that they would make efforts to ensure peace and tranquillity in the border areas.
On 1st April 2020, India and China completed their 70 years of diplomatic relations. Both countries have resolved border issues peacefully in the past four decades which gives them hope that the tensions will subside soon.
India and China are amongst the largest economies, demography, markets and militaries of the world. Therefore, it is in the interests of both the countries to align their energies for the growth and development of their people, region and global peace.