At a funeral last week in the mountains of northern India, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi¡¯s top aides paid respect to a Tibetan soldier killed on the front lines of deadly clashes with China.
Surrounded by troops waving the flags of both India and Tibet, Ram Madhav laid a wreath before the coffin during a ceremony that gave the deceased man full military honors. In a now-deleted tweet, the national general-secretary of Modi¡¯s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party said he hoped the soldier¡¯s death would lead to peace along the ¡°Indo-Tibetan border.¡±
The rare recognition of a secretive Indian military unit with Tibetan soldiers by itself threatened to escalate a border dispute that has killed dozens since May and tanked economic ties between the world¡¯s most-populous nations. Even more significant was the suggestion that India questioned China¡¯s sovereignty over Tibet ¡ª a red line for Beijing, which sees separatism as a cause also worth fighting for in places from Xinjiang to Hong Kong to Taiwan.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.