China does not want to settle the border issue, and if the issue has to be settled, it will have to be done on an equitable basis, and not on the basis of the Chinese notion of 'sovereignty', according to India's former Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal.

In an interview with Catch, Sibal said right from the beginning of the Doklam stand-off, the Indian strategy was to leave the door open for China to retreat and save face. 'If we had reacted in the same manner and the level of verbal confrontation had become even higher, it would have been very difficult for both sides to retreat, especially China,' he argued.

About why China had raised the pitched of confrontation through its official media, Sibal said with a laugh: 'When somebody is wounded, they cry out loud. So I think China was wounded and its cries were very shrill. Since we were not wounded, we did not have to cry so loud.'

China, he said, had to save face, as its calculations reflected in its threats and ultimatums to India failed.

'They had the feeling that there was a disparity between the two countries - their economy was five times larger and they had a much larger military - and that therefore India would buckle under their threats. They tested this over two months and realised that this was not working. So they had to very carefully look at their options.'.