Brahma Chellaney is alarmed over China's "high-altitude land grab" which would most unlikely morph into a major war in the Himalayas, because his country, India, seems unwilling to "bare its own teeth." He has listed a series of "non-violent terrestrial aggression" and accuses China of "stealth incursion into India every 24 hours," deploying herders, farmers, and grazers to "settle on contested land," while letting army troops "gain control of the disputed area," to establish a fait accompli.

China is one of India's top trading partners, but they vie for regional influence and are in dispute over their border, which was drawn in 1914 when Britain, India's former colonial power, signed an agreement with Tibet making the McMahon Line the de-facto border between the two countries, with no regard to China, which has always rejected this agreement.

India and Tibet share close cultural and religious ties and the Dalai Lama has regularly affirmed India’s sovereignty over the entirety of Arunachal Pradesh, including areas Beijing claims as “south Tibet”. China and India became neighbors only after China annexed their mutual buffer state, Tibet in 1951. Since then, both sides claim each other's territory - India, the Aksai Chin and parts of Kashmir given by Pakistan to China for a road linking Tibet to the Chinese province of Xinjiang; China refuses to recognise Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh as part of India.

The author also ridicules Narendra Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, who "used to claim that, in their 5,000-year history, India and China fought only one war, in 1962." But it was a defeat for Indian troops, which were sent to the remote valleys high on the eastern Himalayas claimed by China. Mao Tse Tung's People's Liberation Army (PLA) outflanked and routed the Indians. The PLA took much of Arunachal Pradesh and wasn't far from Calcutta. After teaching India a lesson, Mao ordered a withdrawal of troops.

The author points out that China and India didn't share any borders until 1951. Since the 1962 war, India had beefed up its military in the area, increasing the number of mountain troops significantly and building high-altitude airbases etc. Despite incursions of Chinese troops across the Indian border, both Beijing and Delhi had sought to play down these transgressions. Diplomats say there are differing perceptions on where the border lies - what India believes is Chinese troops crossing into their territory is seen by Beijing as the exact reverse: Indian troops occupying Chinese land.

During his 2014 visit to Delhi Xi expressed his commitment to working with India to resolve the dispute and maintain "peace and tranquillity" on the common border. He said the area had to be demarcated, as the dispute has troubled both sides for long. Modi agreed that the "true potential" of the Sino-Indian relations would only be realised when there was peace in their relations and in the borders.

The author sees Modi's docile stance as an appeasement, because he does nothing to the PLA "actively intruding into vacant border space with the objective of occupying it", while the "Indian border police patrolling the area don’t even carry weapons." The author says this has only encouraged China "to do as it pleases along India’s northern frontier." Moreover China is an old and staunch ally of Pakistan, "whose forces often fire at Indian troops along the disputed Kashmir frontier."

The problem is that from Ladakh and Kashmir in the west to India's Assam and Northeast Frontier Agency (Arunachai Prades) and Tibet , the region is a tinderbox, that could spark a war at the top of the world. While China insists on its historical claims and sees the border dispute with India as leftover issues from history, it does reflect the suspicion and distrust that exist on both sides. The continuing tensions and India's huge trade deficit with China have soured bilateral ties in recent years.

Meanwhile India feels encircled by China's Road and Belt Initiative, a $900 bn project launched by Xi Jinping to connect China to Europe and Africa by land and sea. China is investing heavily in countries that are seen by India as its backyard. To the west - Pakistan, to the north - Tibet, to the east - Myanmar, and to the south - Sri Lanka. Unfortunately there is no political will on both sides to resolve the border dispute once and for all. Nationalism and hubris are being used political tools in foreign policies to distract the public from domestic grievances.

The US has no appetite to mediate, even though it sees India as an ally. No doubt it wants to keep China preoccupied.