Amid emergence of increasing Chinese footprint in the recovery of drones along the Indo-Pak frontier as also significant use of Chinese weapons by Pakistani terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, involvement of Beijing in the Islamabad-fuelled proxy war in India is expanding in a major way.
From pumping up small arms and ammunition of such caliber into Jammu and Kashmir terror arc through the Pakistani government channels, China is now supplying sophisticated weapons including armour piercing rounds and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones with improved payloads that are being frequently used by the Pakistani ISI-military complex for gunrunning activities, illicit drugs trade and backing its terror cohorts along its frontiers with India.
Preliminary probe findings suggest Chinese armoured piercing rounds were used in the attack on an army truck in Poonch leading to fatalities of five soldiers last week.
Counter-terrorism experts and geopolitical analysts said the Pakistani politico-military combine has ‘successfully’ convinced Beijing that the state-sponsored terror groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayabba (LeT) are the best bet to secure the Chinese investments in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Pakistan.
They said that the time is ripe to break the China-Pakistan nexus to disrupt the possibility of further sophistication and scale of weapons supplies from Beijing to Islamabad like shoulder-fired Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) which could adversely alter the security situation in the Jammu and Kashmir and potentially escalate the current adversarial relations of New Delhi with Islamabad into a full-fledged war.
The Pakistani security establishment has acquired the capability of fooling the big powers like the United States and China for maintaining its nuisance value as well as extracting financial and defence technological hardware, they said, adding a whole of government approach led by the top political leadership is required to put across counter narratives to swing Beijing from such Pakistani machinations against India.
The frequent deployment of Chinese drones by Pakistan has blunted India’s edge in deployment of surveillance equipment and sensors along the border for real-time detection of human movements. In addition, monitoring drone movement is a challenging task as India has a long border with Pakistan.
From recovery of just five Chinese origin weapons in 2018 to 30 such equipment being recovered in 2022 is a clear pointer to the emerging trend in the Valley.
Likewise, the number of drone detections have jumped from 103 in 2021 (after the Galwan attack) to 207 in 2022. The payload capacity of the drones have also improved from just five kg to 80 kg during the period.
The discernible shift from supply of small arms like pistols and ammunition of Chinese origin to rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), launchers and AK series assault rifles of Chinese make post the June 2020 Galwan Valley attack is likely to further mature to provisions of SAMs and anti-armour equipment to target tanks and helicopters, posing a plausible threat of completely changing the terror dynamics in Jammu and Kashmir. Both Pakistan and China have been on record protesting the abrogation of Article 370 that altered the special status of the erstwhile State permanently.
A variety of high-grade drone components as also other dual tech equipment are manufactured in units at CPEC for which the Chinese companies have trained thousands of local Pakistani people, especially from Quetta and Peshawar. This makes the supply and assembly of drones a handy tool for the Pakistani military to upgrade its terror tactic against India, especially in Jammu and Kashmir.
In what could further hit the fragile security situation in the region, emergence of an illicit drone market in Pakistan cannot be ruled out.
Counter-terrorism and geopolitical analyst Dr Rituraj Mate said, “Without losing further time, India should adopt an aggressive policy to reverse the Pakistani designs and convince the visiting Chinese ministers during the run up to the G-20 and SCO meeting here on the futility of such moves. New Delhi should shift from acting only after a full-blown crisis and take a concerted bid to remedy the situation and mitigate the threat from the covert Chinese supplies of arms and ammunition to Jammu and Kashmir via the Pakistani establishment.”
Emerging counter-terrorism expert from Jammu and Kashmir, Kishmish Sapru told The Pioneer, “Chinese support to terrorism in India is multi-faceted from diplomatic, financial, logistical and moral support to material supplies. Apart from the covert supplies of arms, ammunition and drones, Beijing has also overtly blocked India’s bids several times to sanction Pakistani terror groups like JeM and LeT, and their leaders like Maulana Masood Azhar and Abdul Rahman Makki among others.”
“Besides the Chinese equipment supplies and diplomatic support to Pakistan by blocking Indian efforts and practically backing Pak-sponsored terror groups and individual terrorists, Beijing has also been providing intelligence inputs and communication facilitation to aid the Pakistani proxy war in India. Containment measures should be initiated by New Delhi in right earnest,” said another analyst Anjali Singh.
