A New Border War !

The worlds two most populous countries share a common border, but that border was not settled when India gained independencwe from Britain and Mao won a civil war to proclaim China a Communist state.  It has constantly been a point of friction ever since and the two countries have engaged in limited armed hostilities on several occasions.

Once again fighting has broken out on the India/Chinese border and the world holds its breath.   These are now nuclear armed nations and both are headed by leaders of an intemperate nature. Another unssettled dispute involves the Indian provinces of of Jammu and Kashmir in which its 8,500,000 residents follow the Muslim religion.

This is claimed by both India and Pakistan and both countries have troops facing one another and regularly clash over this unsettled holdover from the days of Indian independence.  The matter was supposed to be settled by a referendum, but that never happened.

Fortunately, a degree of restraint has been in place in this latest eruption of violence between India and China.  The two sides have fought over control of an access road to an airfield, but so far this has not involved firearms.   The clash has been between bodies of men armed with steel bars and baseball bats and an undetermined number on both sides have been killed.  New reports suggest that these deaths involve about thirty people on both sides

What happens next depends greatly on the leaders of these two nations. Modi is fast taking India into becoming a predominantly Hindu state and Xi Jinping has aspirations for China to become a world military power.   The danger is that nationalistic ambitions may fuel this border tension to the point where neither is prepared to back down.  That was exactly the cause of Europeas countless border wars of an earlier century.

Exactly the same problem exists between India and Pakistan.  They also face each other armed with nuclear weapons and elements within Pakistan uphold a holy war against India that has taken the form of armed incursions across their common border.  A Pakistan terror group recently conducted a raid on Mumbai's hotels, killing foreigners and setting fire to buildings until they were individually eliminated.

The United Nations was supposed to be the world body to arbitrate these sort of disputes.   It has dissolved into power blocks to little effect.  The days of the United Nations taking concerted action to right a wrong seems to be over.   We can only hope that both Modi and Xi Jinping have the good sense to not let this border tension get out of hand.  A nuclear clash betwwen these two Asian behemoths  is all it would take to permanently damage a world economy crippled by this spreading virus pandemic  !