NEW DELHI: Hundreds of Indian and Chinese troops have dug into positions on a high Himalayan plateau, leading India’s army chief to cancel a foreign trip and monitor a standoff that underscores deep differences between the Asian giants as they seek closer ties.

Military officials in New Delhi and India-held Kashmir alleged on Tuesday that Chinese troops had set up a camp about 3km into territory claimed by India in the Chumar region of the Ladakh plateau more than a week ago.

Know more: Indian, Chinese troops in new standoff

Indian soldiers had set up their own base nearby and had been told not to back down, the officials said.

Asked about the standoff, China’s Ministry of Defence said the two sides’ understanding of the line of the border was not the same.

India has deployed 1,500 and China 800 troops in Chumar area, says Indian official

“The two countries’ border, to this day, has not been designated,” the ministry said in a faxed statement, adding that the Chinese military respected pacts signed by both countries.

“Both sides, if problems occur in the border area, can reach an appropriate resolution through dialogue and consultation.”

India has deployed about 1,500 troops in the Chumar area and there are about 800 Chinese soldiers, according to an Indian government official.

The two sides are not in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation and are well separated from each other.

The alleged incursion by Chinese troops into territory claimed by India dominated a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, overshadowing his pledges to invest $20 billion over five years and a bid to warm personal ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

After a summit between Mr Modi and Mr Xi on Friday, the soldiers pulled back from a face-to-face confrontation to take up more distant positions.

India’s army chief, General Dalbir Singh, cancelled a three-day visit to Bhutan on Monday in order to monitor the border situation, a government official in New Delhi said.

Mr Modi has promised to take a tougher stance in border dispute with China, joining other Asian nations, including Japan and the Philippines, which have pushed back against Beijing.

China must be combat ready to win a “regional war”, Chinese President Xi Jinping told senior military leaders, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

Mr Xi’s comments were widely reported in Indian media and came days after a speech in New Delhi in which he said China was not a warlike nation.

During Mr Xi’s visit Mr Modi urged an early border settlement with China.

Both sides have held 17 rounds of border talks since the early 1990s, with little progress.

Small incursions are common across the Line of Actual Control between the nations, the de facto border that runs some 4,000 km across the Himalayas, but it is rare for either country to set up camp deep within disputed territory.

“As both sides have increased their forces on the border it has led to more confrontations like this,” said Dipankar Banerjee, director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi.

“These sorts of events are par for the course when you have a long un-demarcated border.”

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2014