From reading many articles on the LAC standoff between India & China the name of the game seems to be the strategic Galwan valley & its high vantage points that allows PLA to overlook & potentially cut off India’s new DSDBO road heading to the strategic Daulat Beg Oldie.
Difference this time is structures built and massive mobilization at the back.
Interesting that China choose this moment to make a move.
1. It feels threatened enough by an increasingly hostile USA and allies in the backdrop of COVID-19 & other tensions to now secure all perceived weaknesses.
2. It feels strong enough now and wants to make big moves like in S.China sea.
3. Combination of 1 & 2.
Border disputes will only get worse as China feels it has bided its time & now works to stake ground claim in the entire periphery or all border nooks & crannies of this empire.
The humiliation for China (in its book) is not over despite all territorial, economic & military gains after PRC was established.
The ‘humiliation’ will only end once it gets all its claims.
The reading of the Chinese press even now shows an overwhelming focus on the US and its moves against China.
Clear that China only feels any real threat to it is only from US.
He in SCMP claims India attacked an isolated China in 1962 just after failure of Great Leap !
But same piece says 62 started with China taking Ladakh.
What people are forgetting is last couple of years has seen the most serious break-down in Sino-US ties which shift away from Nixon’s 1972 engagement process coming to an end with now open economic, military, tech, political, influence rivalry between US & China.
It was and is a Revisionist Power that wants to ‘Take it’s rightful place’ in a modern version of the Middle Kingdom with CCP at the helm.
No room for two suns.
The ‘humiliation’ was not just about the unequal treaties, opium wars, bullying by colonial powers or a brutal Japanese aggression but a deeper sense that the Middle Kingdom had lost its ‘historical place’.
It is a Revisionist Power that wants to re-establish what it sees as a historical status quo (real or imagined) for the Middle Kingdom.
This partly explains Chinese actions & position in S.China sea rejected by UN Tribunal.
However, even ROC or Taiwan has similar position on Tibet (relating to LAC) & South China Sea & along with China rejected UN Tribunal ruling on S.China sea citing lack of historical & legal claims.
Problem is that modern Chinese equate soft suzerainty of Middle Kingdom with sovereignty now.
Also blind to modern treaties between great powers (UK & Russia) that greatly benefitted China.