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China today ruled out a compromise in the military standoff with India in the Sikkim section, and put the onus on New Delhi to resolve the "grave" situation.

In unusually blunt remarks, China’s Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui said "the ball is in India’s court" and it was for the Indian government to decide what options could be on the table to resolve the standoff.

Asked about remarks by official Chinese media and think- tanks that the conflict can lead to a "war" if not handled properly, the ambassador said in an interview to PTI: "There has been talk about this option, that option. It is up to your government policy (whether to exercise military option)."

The Chinese government is very clear that it wants peaceful resolution at current state of the situation for which withdrawal of Indian troops from the area is a "pre-condition", he asserted.

"The first priority is that the Indian troops unconditionally pull back to the Indian side of the boundary. That is the precondition for any meaningful dialogue between China and India," he said.

China and India have been engaged in a standoff in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan trijunction for past 19 days after a Chinese army’s construction party came to build a road.

Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam, while China claims it as part of its Donglang region. China and Bhutan are engaged in talks over the resolution of the area. Bhutan, however, has no diplomatic ties with China and it is supported militarily and diplomatically by India.

"The situation is grave and made me deeply worried. It is the first time that Indian troops have crossed the mutually recognised boundary and trespassed into China’s territory, triggering a close range face off between Chinese and Indian border troops. Now 19 days have passed, but the situation still has not eased," Luo said.

He also asserted that India has no right to interfere with the China-Bhutan boundary talks, nor is it entitled to make territorial claims on behalf of Bhutan.

On the standoff, the Ministry of External Affairs had said India was "deeply concerned at the recent Chinese actions and has conveyed to the Chinese government that such construction would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for India".

"As for the so called ’security concerns’ of the Indian side, India has crossed a delimited boundary into other country’s territory in the name of security concerns, no matter what kind of activities it conducts there, which will not acceptable to any sovereign state.

"India cannot encroach upon the territory of other countries on the ground of its ’security concerns’. Otherwise, the world would be in chaos," the Chinese envoy added.

He also asserted that "it is critical that India shall withdraw its troops immediately to minimise the negative impact. It serves the interests of the two sides."

’China will have to take military way if India doesn’t listen’

China would be forced to use a "military way" to end the standoff in the Sikkim sector if India "refuses to listen" to it, a Chinese expert has warned.

As the standoff at the Doklam area continued for the third week, the longest between the two countries, the official media and the think-tanks here have said that "war is possible if the conflict between India and China is not handled properly".

"China is trying its best to use historical lessons to reason with India and show sincerity in peacefully solving the problem, but if India refuses to listen, then China would have no other choice than to use a military way of solving the problem," Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the state-run Global Times.

Hu claimed that India is provoking China because it wanted to prove to the US that it could contain China while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the US.

But Hu said Trump was not like his predecessor Barack Obama.

"Obama believes India is important only because they share the same values, but Trump is very pragmatic, and he doesn’t treat India as a valuable ally because New Delhi is too weak to confront Beijing," Hu opined.

Although India always treats China as its biggest rival, China does not think so as India lags far behind China, Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert, was quoted as saying by the daily.

"Experts also scoffed at India’s military threat after Indian Defense Minister Arun Jaitely asserted on Friday that the India of 2017 is different from what it was in 1962," said the report in the daily, known for its nationalist stance.

"The gap between the militaries of China and India today is even bigger than in 1962, and I hope India can keep calm for its own good," Hu said.

Since the standoff on June 6, when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) destroyed bunkers of the India Army claiming the area belonged to China, Chinese media have carried several pieces warning India for escalating border tension and "reminding" the Indian Army about the 1962 war.

Of the 3,488-km-long India-China border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in Sikkim.