China’s new land border law comes into effect amid brewing trouble

On January 1, the Land Boundary Law of the People’s Republic of Chinacame into effect. The law will govern all Chinese state activities in border areas and related issues, including the management and defense of frontier areas. Beijing adopted the law on October 23 last year amid heightened tensions with neighboring India, which led to speculation that the law was directed at securing Chinese gains along the China-India Line of Actual Control in Ladakh. However, as pointed out by Brookings Institution’s Shuxian Luo, the Chinese legal action was not motivated by this specific dispute. Rather, it was driven by an attempt by China to secure its land borders in face of growing and across-the-board security strategic uncertainty.

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