India's Border Police Chief Says Face-Offs with Chinese Troops Continue
India's armed forces are involved in multiple ongoing face-offs with the Chinese army along the border in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, according to Shatrujeet Kapur, director general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the paramilitary force that guards the Himalayan frontier with China. Kapur said the standoffs "still continue." Al Jazeera
Kapur made the remarks at a ceremony honouring ITBP personnel, where he said commandos had been active in the confrontations with Chinese forces. The face-offs are being reported in Upper Subansiri, a remote district of Arunachal Pradesh.
The two countries share a 3,488-km border, much of which is undemarcated, meaning it has never been precisely marked on the ground. India and China also read the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto boundary between their forces, differently, a gap that has historically caused friction between troops, according to an Indian Express explainer.
The region has a long record of confrontation. In August 1959, the first clash between independent India and China took place in Upper Subansiri and killed at least two Indian soldiers. Six years ago, at least 20 Indian troops died in hand-to-hand fighting with Chinese forces in the mountains of Ladakh, a separate sector of the frontier.
Diplomatic contacts have continued alongside the tensions. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited New Delhi last month for the BRICS summit, a group of major emerging economies, his first trip to India in seven years, and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines. In October 2024, India and China began implementing a new border pact and completed pulling troops back from two face-off points.
Reports of friction have surfaced in recent months. In August 2026, an Indian website reported that Indian and Chinese patrols had faced off in late July, and India said peace on the border was critical to its ties with China. An Indian defence spokesperson dismissed reports of fresh tensions at the time, according to Reuters. Local civil society groups in Arunachal Pradesh told Al Jazeera that Chinese forces were increasingly encroaching on Indian territory and denying Indian troops access to patrolling points.
India's Ministry of External Affairs said in a briefing dated October 23, 2026, that border areas are disturbed from time to time when Chinese forces diverge from established patrolling patterns. On October 26, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun addressed reports of a fresh India-China border confrontation at a regular briefing.
