‘Govt Managing Headlines, Not India-China Crisis’: Manoj Joshi

Video Editor: Puneet Bhatia

"It seems the government is busy managing headlines, instead of the India-China crisis," says Manoj Joshi, China Expert and Distinguished Fellow of Observer Research Foundation, in an exclusive interview with The Quint's Editorial Director Sanjay Pugalia.

‘Why Is the Govt Providing Half-Baked Information?’

Manoj Joshi, while explaining the chronology, said that first the news of the death of three of our soldiers in the deadly clash with Chinese troops came in. And there was source-based news that five Chinese soldiers were killed. But by the evening, news came in that 20 soldiers were killed in action, along with the source-based news of 43 Chinese soldiers being killed in clash.

“Similarly, earlier it was said that all our soldiers have returned to the Indian side of LAC. But later, The New York Times published that 10 Indian soldiers were reportedly captured by China,” added Joshi

“Why is the government providing half-baked information? Why is the government hiding facts?” asked Joshi.

When PM Modi announced at the all-party meet that there was no incursion, no posts were captured, the Chinese troops were patrolling Finger 4 at Pangong Tso in Ladakh and not letting our troops patrol beyond Finger 4, while earlier our troops would patrol up to Finger 8. So how can PM Modi say that there has been no incursion?

Manoj Joshi, China Expert and Distinguished Fellow, ORF

‘All Efforts of The Past 20-25 Years Rendered Useless’

Manoj Joshi believes that now the matter could be resolved by dialogues, but the reality is that due to this violent face-off and its ramifications, the efforts that were made in the past 20-25 years to build the trust between the two nations, have been rendered useless. “Now the defence minister has said that weapons can be wielded under special conditions, that means the older agreement has been ended. Because if the weapon can be used by our soldiers, then the other side will also wield weapons. And that way, we are back to square one.”