Indian and Chinese soldiers were involved in separate clashes on May 5 in Eastern Ladakh and on May 9 in Sikkim but the troops disengaged after dialogue and interaction at the local level, army sources said.

Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Global Times that recent incidents demonstrate that such problems can be resolved locally without escalating it to the national level.

The face-off was reminder that these reoccurring minor issues may not have hurt China-India relations but they may in the future, Qian said. "So we need to find opportunities and work out a fair and reasonable resolution to the border issue as soon as possible," he said.

The face-offs occur because the boundary along the 3,448-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) is not marked, sources told The Hindu, adding that such an incident occurred after a long time.