New Delhi: A day after India downplayed the China threat, calling it a media creation, CNN-IBN has access to a confidential intelligence note that suggests that Beijing is acting on a definite military plan on the border.
“There is no mutually agreed or delineated line of actual control between the two countries,” Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said underscoring why intrusions take place.
According to the Government, no defined border exists and the armies of both countries follow a vague and illogical line where hostilities ceased in 1962.
But the perils of this situation cannot be minimised. A confidential intelligence note with CNN-IBN suggests the Chinese are working to an India centric plan:
In Arunachal Pradesh, the behaviour of Chinese troops has become more aggressive. Border pillars in some areas have been deliberately broken and bunkers have been built on the Indian side of the McMahon Line.
Opposite Sikkim's eastern border a new highway and permanent army structures have come up. Chinese forces are now positioned to cut the strategic Siliguri corridor in India in the event of hostilities.
A joint command of the Lanzhou Military Region opposite Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the Chengdu Military Region opposite India's North-east have come up.
From Tibet, China can airlift 20,000 troops to anywhere along the frontiers with India in two hours.
By comparison the infrastructure in India's north-east remains poor. A key highway in Arunachal Pradesh has only now received environment clearance. In Ladakh, the pace of road construction linking key points along the Line of Actual Control is laggard and Chushul remains without an all-weather road link.
The only silver lining here is that hostilities of any kind could rebound on China. It would confirm suspicions about Beijing's intentions and reinforce moves in South-East and North-East Asia to form powerful new coalitions against the expansion of Chinese power.
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