New Delhi: China continues to ramp up infrastructure along the Line of Actual Contol (LAC) by strengthening its military positions and deploying additional craft at its air bases facing India.
According to the Times of India, sources in the defence and security establishment point to the latest satellite imagery, intelligence reports and other inputs to highlight heightened Chinese activity in all three sectors of the 3,488 km long LAC, stretching from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.
“People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is relentlessly consolidating its military positions and support infrastructure in various depth and staging areas along the LAC, including near the buffer zones created after troop disengagements in eastern Ladakh,” a source told TOI.
For instance, China has recently finished the construction of a road from north of Samzungling to the Galwan Valley to help the Chinese army with a 15-km shorter alternate axis to rapidly build up troops in the area.
China has laid a special thrust on roads, bridges, tunnels and helipads to its forward positions to ensure last-mile connectivity in the region. It has also been building new bunkers, camps, underground shelters, artillery positions, radar sites and ammunition dumps in other stretches of the LAC. “This increased PLA activity is especially being seen in the eastern sector, across Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and Naku La in north Sikkim,” another source said.
To lessen the impact on air combat due to high altitude, China has been deploying additional fighters, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and drones besides upgrading its airfields. It has upgraded airfields in Hotan, Kashgar, Gargunsa, Shigatse, Bangda, Nyingchi and Hoping, among others, with new and extended runways, hardened shelters, fuel and ammunition storage facilities.
Along the disputed stretches of LAC, new Chinese dual-use ‘Xiaokang’ border villages are regularly being built and older ones are being “populated”, specifically in the eastern sector, sources said.
“All this clearly indicates PLA will continue to permanently station troops in forward locations along the LAC, even if eventually there is some sort of disengagement at the two major persisting face-off sites at Depsang and Demchok in eastern Ladakh,” a source said.
On the other hand, the Chinese army has also been strengthening military and transport infrastructure to the rear of the other buffer zones on both banks of Pangong Tso, including the Kailash range, and Gogra-Hot Springs – which India considers as its own territory.
