The US Pentagon's latest assessment of the expanding military might of China, which has now overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, holds that Beijing is "concerned" with the "strategic ramifications of India's rising economic, political and military power". Consequently, "to improve regional deterrence", the 2.25-million strong People's Liberation Army has moved "more advanced and survivable" solid-fuelled CCS-5 nuclear-capable ballistic missiles closer to the borders with India.
" China may also be developing contingency plans to move airborne troops into the region," says the Pentagon report on 'military and security developments involving the People's Republic of China'.
Though there is nothing new in all this to startle the Indian defence establishment, it does reinforce the point that China continues to upgrade its already massive build-up of military infrastructure all along the unresolved 4,057-km Line of Actual Control.
Satellite pictures, for instance, have long disclosed that a large area in central China, near Delingha and Da Qaidam in Qinghai province, has close to 60 launch pads for nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, which can easily target north India. Moreover, the new Chinese road-mobile DF-31A missiles, which can hit targets 11,200 km away, and the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which have a reach beyond 7,200 km, are weapons which even has the US worried.
China, of course, continues to needle India with frequent troop incursions across the LAC, from Trig Heights and Pangong Tso lake in Eastern Ladakh to the "finger area" in Sikkim and Asaphila sector in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Pentagon report, in fact, says, "Despite increased political and economic relations over the years between China and India, tensions remain along their shared 4,057-km border, most notably over Arunachal Pradesh, which China asserts is part of Tibet and therefore of China, and over the Askai Chin region."
By: Brant
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