Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Given China's psyche, can we take soft line'at face value?

After China’s People’s Liberation Army raised tensions along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and northern Sikkim’s Naku La in early May, and its troops got into fisticuffs with Indian soldiers, there were reports of stepped-up military deployment on both sides of the LAC, following which Beijing indicated it was ready to “soften” its stand and America’s mercurial President Donald Trump offered to “mediate or arbitrate” between the two Asian giants. If today China claims it is “softening” its position in Ladakh and the LAC overall, and says the dragon and the elephant “pose no threat to each other”, will India once again take this at face value given that there is no indication that the PLA troops have moved away from Indian territory? For India too, what initially appeared controllable “China virus” pandemic, the imported disease has accelerated, to firmly grip New Delhi, thus creating an adverse public opinion against any cosying up to Beijing over trade and economics, which was being showcased as an “example” of Han-Hindustani “convergence”, far outweighing the historical border dispute “divergence”, that led to the India’s unprecedented 1962 hammering in the high Himalayas. True, the Line of Actual Control does have some grey areas, but just as China has its own “perception” of the LAC, so too does India, so if the Chinese PLA feels free to engage in fisticuffs with Indian soldiers at the border, what is stopping the Indian Army from enforcing its own “perception” of the LAC.