News emerged of the Chinese military (PLA) raising new militia units made up of local Tibetan youth for high-altitude warfare.
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Chinese military prepares for higher altitudes
- The story: News emerged of the Chinese military (PLA) raising new militia units made up of local Tibetan youth for high-altitude warfare. Given China's continuing high-intensity face-off against India on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), this was a concern for India.
- Mimang Cheton: The new units are named "Mimang Cheton", and presently undergoing training. Deployment will be in the upper Himalayan ranges, both in the eastern and western sectors of the India-China border. They are being trained for a variety of tasks, including using high-tech equipment such as drones on the one hand, as well as mules and horses to reach regions in the Himalayan range that can’t be accessed by modern means. Having been raised near Eastern Ladakh, the site of the recent border tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), as well as near its borders with Sikkim and Bhutan, they are clearly aiming at offering more challenge to India.
- LAC: The Line of Actual Control is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory. Trained units have already been deployed along various locations in the Chumbi valley and at Rutog in Tibet, near the Pangong Tso (lake) in eastern Ladakh. The deployment of the new Mimang Cheton units mirrors India’s elite and decades-old Special Frontier Force (SFF). Just like the SFF which relies on the knowledge of Tibetans, the Mimang Cheton also relies on the local knowledge of Tibetans as well as locals' resistance to High Altitude Sickness, a problem in alpine warfare.
- Goals: The new units will be used for high-altitude warfare as well for surveillance. A special feature is that they are being blessed by Buddhist monks in Tibet, being interpreted as a sign of greater socio-cultural outreach from the PLA to ethnic Tibetans. Note that the PLA has been extremely harsh with the Tibetan since the 1960s, intent on wiping out their cultural existence itself.
- Chinese infra along LAC: China started the first bullet train line in Tibet, linking Lhasa to Nyingchi near the border with Arunachal Pradesh. It is the second major rail link to Tibet after the Qinghai-Tibet railway that opened in 2006. In 2021, China completed construction of a strategically significant highway enabling greater access to remote areas along the disputed border with Arunachal Pradesh in India. In January 2021, reports emerged of Chinese construction of three villages in Arunachal Pradesh 5 kilometres from the Bum La pass. In 2020, satellite images emerged showing a new village called Pangda built 2-3 km into what Bhutan sees as its land. In 2017, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government launched a plan to build moderately well-off villages in border areas.
- Chumbi Valley: It is a 100-km protrusion of Chinese territory located between Bhutan in the east and Sikkim in the west. Its location has long resulted in concerns that it could be used to launch operations to snap strategic communications links in the Siliguri Corridor. The corridor is a narrow stretch of land located around the city of Siliguri in West Bengal, connecting northeastern states with the rest of the country, and is known as "the chicken's neck".
- Indian infra: India has its own High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir. It will spend 10% funds of the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) only to improve the infrastructure along the China border. The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) constructed the Daporijo bridge over Subansiri river in Arunachal Pradesh, linking roads leading upto the LAC between India and China. The state government of Arunachal Pradesh has advocated selection of 10 census towns along the India-China border as pilot projects for infrastructure development in order to stop people living along its international borders, specifically with China, from migrating to faraway urban centres in the State. In 2019, the Indian Air Force inaugurated resurfaced runway at India’s easternmost Village-Vijaynagar (Changlang district) in Arunachal Pradesh. In 2019, the Indian Army conducted exercise ‘HimVijay’ in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam with its newly created Integrated Battle Groups (IBG). Bogibeel bridge, which is India’s longest road-rail bridge connecting Dibrugarh in Assam to Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh was inaugurated in 2018. India has redirected at least 50,000 additional troops to its border with China in a shift toward an offensive military posture against the world’s second-biggest economy. India now has roughly 2,00,000 troops focused on the border, an increase of over 40 per cent from 2020. It's unclear how many troops China has on the border, but India detected that the People’s Liberation Army moved additional forces from Tibet to the Xinjiang Military Command, responsible for patrolling disputed areas along the Himalayas.
- Summary: It is clear that the Himalayas will witness prolonged India-China friction, before lasting peace may find a chance.
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