India and China’s fragile relations worsened in the past few years, especially after the skirmishes between the Indian and Chinese armies and the fierce face-off in the Galwan Valley in 2020 when 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also suffered massive losses but never shared the number of casualties.
India is expecting more skirmishes with the Chinese soldiers in future, the news agency Reuters reported citing a security assessment by Indian police in the Himalayan region of Ladakh. This comes as several reports have suggested that China has been ramping up military infrastructure in the region.
Concerns were also raised after last month’s skirmish between Indian and Chinese soldiers along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh. Reports said that during the face-off, soldiers from both sides sustained “minor injuries”.
The assessment has been reviewed by Reuters and it is said to be part of a new, confidential research paper by the Ladakh Police. The paper was apparently submitted at a conference of top police officers held from January 20 to 22.
Local police in the border areas gathered intelligence reports and analysed the pattern of India-China military tensions over the years for this assessment.
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As quoted by the news agency, the paper had a reference to China’s People’s Liberation Army, and said: “Given the domestic compulsions … in China and their economic interests in the region, the PLA would continue to build up its military infrastructure and skirmishes would also get frequent which may or may not follow a pattern.”
“If we analyse the pattern of skirmishes and tensions, the intensity has increased since 2013-2014 with an interval of every 2-3 years,” it said.
It further mentioned that “with the massive infrastructure build-up by PLA on the Chinese side”, both armies are apparently testing each other’s reaction and strength of artillery and infantry mobilisation time.
(With inputs from agencies)
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