NEW DELHI: In the first such visit after the Doklam troop face-off last year, a high-level Chinese military delegation is in India as a confidence-building measure between the two armies ranged against each other along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), even as they prepare to resume their annual bilateral “Hand-in-Hand” combat exercise later this year.
The 10-member People’s Liberation Army, led by the deputy chief of its Western Theatre Command Lt-General Liu Xiaowu, held discussions with Army vice-chief Lt-General Devraj Anbu in New Delhi before leaving on Tuesday for the 33 Corps headquarters at Sukna (
West Bengal) and Eastern Army Command (EAC) at Kolkata.
“The July 2-6 visit by the PLA delegation is in consonance with the vision of PM
Narendra Modi and Chinese President
Xi Jinping during the Wuhan summit in April, where both leaders reaffirmed the need to strengthen bilateral ties,” said an officer.
The heightened military tensions between India and China all along the 4,057-km LAC since the Doklam face-off last year have somewhat de-escalated now, and the two countries are actively working towards establishing a hotline between their top commanders as well as resuming military exchanges and exercises, as was earlier reported by TOI.
“The PLA delegation’s visit to the military headquarters at Sukna is a significant step forward towards increasing interactions at the level of military commanders and implementation of various agreements to maintain peace and tranquillity on the borders. The Indian side at Sukna is being led by 33 Corps commander Lt-Gen Pradeep M Bali. The PLA delegation will arrive at the EAC headquarters at Kolkata on Thursday,” said the officer.
The informal Modi-Xi summit had decided to provide “strategic guidance” to their militaries to manage and defuse troop confrontations during patrolling in accordance with existing protocols and mechanisms, which range from banner drills, flag meetings and border personnel meetings (BPMs) to the WMCC (working mechanism for consultation and coordination) and diplomatic channels.
Despite disengagement of troops from the 73-day face-off site at Doklam near the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction on August 28 last year, the two countries have continued to maintain high operational alertness on their borders, with additional units deployed in forward areas.
PLA troops have now also permanently occupied the Bhutanese territory of north Doklam by constructing bunkers, hutments, roads and helipads to sustain their troops in the area, as was earlier reported by TOI.
But the two sides are now working to fully operationalize the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA), inked between the two countries in October 2013, which specifically prohibited either side from “tailing” each other’s patrols in areas where there is “no common understanding” over where the unresolved LAC actually lies. There are 23 “areas of dispute” identified along the LAC, stretching from Ladakh to
Arunachal Pradesh, where patrols often aggressively tail rival patrols, which in turn often triggers face-offs.
Similarly, India and China are now looking to set up the long-pending hotline between the operations directorates of their central military headquarters, akin to the DGMO-level one between New Delhi and Islamabad, which was first proposed in the BDCA and then agreed to during Modi’s visit to China in 2015.
India and China will now also revive their annual “Hand-in-Hand” exercise between the two armies, the 7th edition of which had got derailed last year due to the Doklam stand-off. “There will also be an increase in the small tactical exercises on the LAC, two of which were held in Ladakh in February and October 2016, apart from establishing additional BPM points,” said another officer.
China, incidentally, has re-organized its 2.2-million PLA into five theatre commands to crank up its offensive capabilities as well as establish better command-and-control structures. Its Western Theatre Command now handles the entire LAC with India, instead of the earlier Chengdu Military Region in the east and the Lanzhou Military Region towards the north.