"If You Speak on Radio, it Can Get Caught. Communication on Optial Fibre Cables is Secure"
Tensions remain high in the ongoing border dispute between India and China. China has been conniving to extend its territorial expansionary aspirations in the Himalaya just as it does over both the East China Sea and the South China sea, alarming its neighbours over its claims of sovereignty over both, using its brute strength to threaten and monopolize disputed regions and islands. From Japan to South Korea, the Philippines to Taiwan, China has flexed its muscles and shoved aside what it views as competitors for geographical eminence that Beijing believes is its alone.
Now India is reporting that Chinese troops have been laying a network of optical fibre cables at a flashpoint with India in the western Himalaya, cables which would serve to provide forward troops with secure lines of communication to the rear, installation taking place to the south of Pangong Tso lake in the region of Ladakh. This is the kind of activity that points to the intention that Beijing has determined that the high level talks at resolving the longstanding standoff over disputed territory is being resolved by China taking what it wants unilaterally, without agreement. A fait accompli.
Backed by tanks and aircraft, thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are locked down along a 70-kilometre front in their uneasy stalemate, with each country continuing to accuse the other of actively escalating the standoff between them. One of them is the victim of the other. "It is as tense as earlier", said an Indian official, speaking off the record. Indian fighter planes flew above Leh, Ladakh's main city, engines echoing across the valley encircled by mountains.
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| Indian army convoy carrying reinforcements and supplies, drive towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, on September 2, 2020 in Gagangir, India. (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images) |
Back in June, a violent face-off took place between Chinese and Indian troops. Some of the soldiers used cudgels with nails hammered into them as weapons, along with rocks, in a zone where guns are forbidden by a previous treaty between the two countries negotiating a standoff over competing border on their shared border in the Himalaya. The skirmish in June that took place in the Galwan Valley led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers, one a ranking captain. Some of the soldiers were thrown bodily off the mountain, leading to their deaths.
Chinese sources have never divulged whether or how many deaths were incurred on the Chinese side. The skirmish led both countries to send additional resources to the border in armoured vehicles and an increased military presence of thousands of soldiers on each side. Both sides accuse the other of provocation, of starting the confrontations. What is undeniable, however, is that China constructed posts in areas intruding on the disputed Indian side of the border, provoking Indian reaction.
Since then, both sides have seen talks taking place, both sides claiming that the simmering feud had been amicably settled, and both sides have put up a screen of deceit. Tensions remain high and mostly because China is surreptitiously continuing to breach the border between itself and India. Top commanders on each side may have agreed to defuse tensions on the Line of Actual Control between the neighbours, but China continues to blame India for provoking the conflict in a manner typical of China, screening itself from responsibility as the aggressor.
"Our biggest worry is that they have laid optical fibre cables for high-speed communications. They have been laying optical fibre cables on the southern bank at breakneck speed", said another ranking Indian official speaking anonymously, unauthorized to speak to the media. Similar cables, noted Indian intelligence, have been installed to the north of Pangong Tso lake a month earlier. Satellite imagery showed unusual lines in the sand of the high-altitude deserts to the south of Pangong Tso, alerting Indian government officials to the activity.
Indian experts, corroborated by foreign intelligence agencies, judged the lines to be communication cables laid in trenches among hilltops where Chinese soldiers fired in the air recently, the first time in decades. A build-up in border infrastructure on the Indian side by Chinese troops played a part in the months-long confrontation in early summer. India has built roads and air strips in and around the disputed border on its own side. But this activity has clearly perturbed their Chinese neighbours.
Labels: Border Disputes, China, Himalaya, India
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 16, 2020
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