By P. Jayaram, India Correspondent
NEW DELHI - TENSION is brewing along the disputed border between India and China, particularly around northern Sikkim.
New Delhi, which has so far downplayed reports of 'incursions' by the Chinese troops, said on Thursday that the issue was serious.
Junior Defence Minister M M Pallam Raju said the government would take it up with Beijing at the highest level but added that he hoped it would not develop into a major row.
'The issue of incursions will be raised at the next meeting (between the two armies) and also discussed at the appropriate highest level,' he told reporters.
'If there is an issue, as two responsible neighbours, we will sort it out.'
But he asserted that India will not 'yield an inch' of territory and will 'stand its ground'.
China has also sought to downplay the reported border violations, with a minister saying that too much should not be read into the incidents.
Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Wu Dawei cited the 'long history of border skirmishes' between the two countries, adding that the 4,000-km India-China border is a 'sensitive issue', according to Indian newspaper reports from Beijing.
The Indian Army said it had recorded 140 cases of 'intrusion' by the Chinese last year. This year alone, 70 such incidents have been reported in and around northern Sikkim in a region called the 'Finger area'.
'It is unfortunate. Sikkim is a settled matter as far as India is concerned,' Mr Raju said.
'I guess that is China's way of putting pressure to resolve the boundary dispute with us. We are going about it with the border talks to arrive at a consensus. It's their style and we have our own style.'
A leading magazine, India Today, reported that a major incident was averted last month after senior officers of an Indian border post intervened.
It said Chinese troops chased, abused and threatened to shoot Indian intelligence personnel, who were verifying claims of Chinese intrusions along the Indo-Tibetan border.
As the two countries have agreed not to open fire to stop intrusions into each other's territory, the Indian Army is now blocking Chinese soldiers by forming 'human chains', along the Indo-Tibetan border, The Times of India reported.
'We are literally forming human chains to stop the Chinese from crossing over. If they come in groups of 20, we assemble 50 men and form a human chain,' it quoted a senior army officer as saying.
'They can't after all push us and cross the border.'
India and China fought a brief war in 1962 but since then the India-China border has been relatively peaceful, particularly after both countries signed a treaty for peace and tranquillity in 1993 and agreed to reduce their troop levels along the border.
The bilateral border dispute has dragged on despite 11 rounds of talks to resolve it. India says China occupies 38,000 sq km of its territory, while Beijing claims the whole of the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which spreads over 90,000 sq km.
But the two countries have not allowed this issue to stand in the way of improving relations in other spheres.
Bilateral trade has been booming and is set to touch US$60 billion (S$82.2 billion) by 2010, having crossed the US$20 billion target they had set for 2008 in 2006.
They signed a defence cooperation agreement in 2006 and have also been holding joint military exercises and sending their officers to each other's military institutions for training.
In 2006, China agreed to reopen the strategic Nathu La pass in Sikkim to border trade, thereby accepting the Himalayan state, a former kingdom which was merged into India in 1975, as part of India.
But of late, China has appeared to be uncomfortable with India's growing strategic ties with the United States, cemented through a series of joint exercises, including the huge five-nation naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, last year.
Beijing sent a note on the issue to New Delhi, conveying its displeasure over the exercise in which Australia, Japan and Singapore were the other participants. Experts said the exercise represented a strategic shift, driven in large part by the fear of a rising China.
Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee travelled to Beijing to iron out the differences, but his scheduled meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao was cancelled by the Chinese at the last minute in a move widely seen here as a 'snub'.
