The Sino-Indian border has been tranquil for decades. But it isn't since April 15 when a platoon of People's Liberation Army troops pitched tents in Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) in Depsang area in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, and the Indian side immediately started a face-off by pitching tents nearby as well.

The situation is getting complicated by the day as the two sides are sticking to their respectively stated positions. The question is: Will the Sino-Indian border remain tranquil or will it become clamorous, or worse, will the Line of Actual Control (LAC) become Line of No Control?

Diplomacy is at work from both the sides to prevent a flare-up. The perception in India, by and large, is that New Delhi has been rather meek toward Beijing and unnecessarily treating the Chinese with kid gloves. The Indian diplomatic establishment, however, is dismissive of such insinuations and feels that what can be achieved through diplomacy cannot be achieved by guns.

The mood in the Indian defense establishment is radically different. The ugly incidents involving Pakistan at the Line of Control (LoC) in January this year have contributed a great deal to an increasing notion among the rank and file of Indian military personnel that India should not be treated as a pushover by its neighbors.

As a result, there is clamor within the Indian defense establishment that additional troops be dispatched to the trouble spot where India had already rushed a platoon of high altitude warfare specialists Ladakh Scouts two days after the April 15 incident. The Ladakh Scouts contingent is deployed just about 500 meters from the newly erected Chinese tents.

The talk of rushing more troops to Depsang area has become louder within the Indian defense circles as two Sino-Indian flag meetings have failed to throw up an amicable solution. Third flag meeting is likely to take place soon but the issue is currently being negotiated at the diplomatic levels where it is more likely to be resolved.

The immediate trigger for the Chinese action seems to be their concern over the Indians beefing up their military infrastructure all along the LAC, including the Depsang area where the Chinese have accused the Indians of "aggressive patrolling." India has recently set up new air bases and reactivated the DBO air strip which incidentally falls in the Depsang area. India had first used the DBO airstrip in 1962 when the Sino-Indian conflict broke out. India used this strip till about 1965 but abandoned it later.

The Chinese concern is that further beefing up of the DBO can be detrimental to its security as this strip, the world's highest, is very close to China. Besides, reports emanating from the Indian defense circles say that the Chinese are also miffed about India's ambitious plans to raise a China-specific Army Corps that may cost India upward of $15 billion. This plan is still awaiting clearance by the Cabinet Committee on Security, India's highest decision-making body on national security issues.

Ironically, the ongoing Depsang episode may prod New Delhi to give green signal to the new army corps. It is highly unlikely that the UPA government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would agree to reverse its years old program of developing all border areas, which includes India-China border areas, in return for withdrawal of Chinese troops from Depsang.

No ruling party in India can be seen as cowering to foreign powers in an election year. This argument alone is enough to read the Chinese tea leaves correctly in the Depsang episode. It will be suicidal for the UPA government to blink first in the current face-off when general elections, due only in May 2014, may well take place in the third quarter of this year.

China should consider mulling over a pertinent question: would it want to navigate the Sino-Indian bilateral relations for the next one decade with this kind of start? It is clear as daylight that China is way ahead of India in terms of military and economic might. It is nobody's case that India will be an equal adversary militarily if a limited localized conflict or a full scale war were to break out at this point of time.

But the question is whether China is prepared to stay put in Depsang and risk souring of ties with India when the two neighbors need to collaborate more closely for peace and prosperity in the region?

The new leadership will have to weigh the long term pros and cons of opening a new military theater, this time with India. A brutally objective cost-benefit analysis is needed particularly when the Indian government is not in a position even to be seen to be cowering and submissive.

The author is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a strategic affairs analyst. bhootnath004@yahoo.com