He hasn't changed his position till now
Yes, I noticed that, and can only surmise that he doesn't want to back down from a position he has taken in public.
You must have noticed that I was unthinkingly supportive of his stance at the time that he made his statement; this was because of his sheer knowledge of the place, from the time when he was a young colonel. Then people started looking at imagery, and found that nothing concrete had happened, and these reports came into view. That was when I realised two things: first, that the general had not been back for a long time, since his transfer to Central Command (that happened fifteen years ago) and he has obviously been depending on reports from former colleagues and subordinates. These may be misleading, skewed, or distorted; nothing like seeing for yourself. Because of his thorough knowledge of the topography, even now when he writes about it, the reader gets a sense of being physically present at the spot, and looking over the general's shoulder.
Second, that we needed to step back and think about the Chinese and their motives. They never, ever do anything without a reason, but typically two or three or more reasons all conflated into one action. I have suggested some of the Indo-centric reasons (there are others, very major) for their doing whatever they are doing; they are angry that Modi is talking to Trump, who is turning out to be a bigger threat to the world than the pandemic, they are angry at public displays of affection with the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Indonesians, the Malaysians (a little), and they are furious with the open flirtation with the Taiwanese. Plus it is general policy to keep India unbalanced and uncertain about what is happening, all of which gets done by their posting some fierce Colonels to their Border Defence Regiments, making permanent their structures on their side of the LAC, posting a few regiments of light tanks and mechanised infantry to those locations, playing cat and mouse in the air, with their air force flying figures of eight, and flying straight at Indian radar installations and breaking off at the very last minute, and all the sorts of things that the Chinese love to do, to remind everyone what lovable creatures they are.
Besides Indo-centric reasons for their odd behaviour, there may be other, very strong reasons for this behaviour. There is constant speculation nowadays that Chairman Xi is under severe pressure because of the virus and the way the Chinese authorities reacted to it, the lack of transparency, the openly humiliating angry talk about China and the virus; that the civil unrest in Hong Kong has been a major source of worry; that the erratic behaviour of Trump is another source of uncertainty; and that altogether, the PRC is not in a good mood, and this is showing up in terms of pressure on all exposed pressure points.
The Indian reaction is quite another thing.
The biggest characteristic of the present government is incompetence. In this, as in their handling of the Nepali situation, or their handling of the internal migrants' efforts to go home, or a million other things, they show very clearly that the magic combination of the "King" and his "Advisor" is not grabbing the headlines after all, which is all that matters to them, forget about the poor. Both at shallow levels and deep, this government has cocked up. The frightening thing is that there seems to be an informal caucus within government circles sabotaging the best decisions of today with their own slick diversions of attention.
Personally, I feel that these clouds will blow over soon.
