A recent series of military confrontations between Chinese troops on one side and Indian and Bhutanese troops on the other in a remote tri-border area in the Himalayas threatens to become a wider conflict unless wiser diplomatic heads prevail. With the eclipse of the United States as a major player in international relations, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, it is now up to regional players to avoid old border disputes from growing into a replay of the 1962 Sino-Indian border war.