The Defence Ministry has denied reports that China has carried out a major troop mobilisation on its side on the line of Actual Control (lAC) in Tibet region. This clarification follows reports in Chinese media that China carried out huge mobilisation of heavy equipment and resources following the face-off at Doklam in Sikkim region. Officials said there was state of alert on both sides but no major movement of troops on either side.
On video clips aired by some television channels showing massive exercises by the Chinese People’s liberation Army (PlA), Defence Ministry sources said it was a routine exercise which took place in early June and there was nothing unusual about it. The drill was undertaken near lhasa in Tibet, about 700 km from the lAC, officials clarified.
Stating that there was stalemate in the Doklam face-off, sources said the issue is now being discussed at the highest political and diplomatic levels. The troops from both the sides have been in a stand-off situation there since June 16 and about 300 Indian soldiers and more or less the same number of Chinese troops were deployed there, said the sources, adding the troops were 150 to 200 metres from each other.
Briefing the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had said diplomatic efforts were on to end the stand-off.
Meanwhile media reports from Beijing said the Chinese Army moved tens of thousands of military vehicles and hardware into the remote mountainous Tibet region after the stand-off with Indian troops in the Doklam area in the Sikkim sector.
The vast haul was transported to a region south of the Kunlun Mountains in northern Tibet by the Western Theatre Command — which oversees the restive regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and handles border issues with India, reported the PlA Daily, the official mouthpiece of Chinese military.
The move took place late last month and involved hardware being moved simultaneously by road and rail from across the entire region, news agency PTI said quoting the PlA Daily.
China’s state-run media has stepped up its rhetoric against India in recent weeks but there was no way to confirm the veracity of such claims.
Early this week, state-run CCTV had broadcast PlA troops taking part in heavy exercises using live ammunition on the Tibetan plateau.
The location was not far from the disputed Dokalam area where Chinese and Indian troops are locked in a stand-off, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
The PlA Daily report, however, did not say whether the movement of the military equipment was to support the exercise or for other reasons.
Wang Dehua, an expert on South Asia studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the scale of the troop and equipment movement showed how much easier it is for China to defend its western borders.
“Military operations are all about logistics,” he said. “Now there is much better logistics support to the Tibet region,” he added.
Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face-off in the Doklam area of the Sikkim sector for over a month after Indian troops stopped the Chinese Army from building a road in the disputed area.
China claimed they were constructing the road within their territory and has been demanding immediate pull-out of the Indian troops from the disputed Doklam plateau.
New Delhi has expressed concern over the road building, apprehending that it may allow Chinese troops to cut India’s access to its northeastern States. India has conveyed to the Chinese Government that the road construction would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for it.