Patrolling alone does not establish De facto control. In order to establish control, patrols have to be paired with infrastructure or permanent constructions such as camps. In terms of infrastructure, China definitely had the advantage over the past few decades, and still does, though to a lesser extent.With much clearer hindsight after this Ladakh crisis, I've become more aware of how much we have (in this forum and of course the Indian side) been exaggerating the importance of this whole regional crisis. There is a lot of noise on this issue from India and Indian based english speaking sources, publications, and individuals. Beyond this, the west actually did not mention it much at all and don't seem to care much for it either AND neither have the Chinese even though they are 1 of 2 participants in this crisis.
I've noticed that it could simply be the case where China just wanted to stop India's increased presence within that 20% remaining dispute. Went in stopped it and if not for all the noise and gossip India has been producing on this topic, Chinese side would have left it all alone. India last month wanted to make fake news about how they captured 100 or 200 PLA soldiers on Tawang and so released the photos showing how badly beaten the Indians were during Galwan clash and the captives. This shut the Indians up and forced the Indian gov to issue official statements to deny and debunk Indian fake news in fear of further embarrassing material being released by China.
Now China does still have the problem of Indian soldiers still being present within some smaller sections of the 20% that has yet to be resolved. However it is entirely possible that the importance of this is much lower on the priority list for CPC than we assume here. Maybe the CPC is thinking okay the situation is mostly contained and controlled and de-escalated, chance for resource consuming war is lower and India is not threatening to take over the 20% or make patrols on Aksai Chin so that initial main threat is resolved unless India escalates which means we'd have to re-engage but if they don't, we got bigger matters to focus on such as ... progress and development.
The only "upset" to all this calming down in the last year was India's noise making and fake news. The talks reached equilibrium with China playing out all its leverage and bargaining power to secure signed buffer deals from India and the rest like I said could simply be acceptable. India was nearly taking over the 20% with de facto control in Jan 2020. Now it has some token temporary positions with most of it India agreeing not to patrol anymore. Threat on Aksai Chin reduced and PLA required to meet Indian patrols not needed.
China does its usual long game (like the salami slicing used in the past after 1962) where it holds talks with Bhutan on the Doklam issue and where it simply continues its claims on AP so long as India claims AC (this is the Tawang patrols form).
While it does have some debateable claims, the article I posted earlier today made a good point that prior to 2020 India had little permanent presence such as infrastructure and camps along the lac. Nos that has changed, and India has camps and infra such as roads and bridges in areas along the lac that were previously unoccupied, including within the disputed areas. Both sides agreed not to patrol the buffer zones, but as has been mentioned before those only constitute a relatively small part of the disputed areas. The big change is for the first time India has permanent presence and camps in the disputed areas that were unoccupied by either side prior to 2020.
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