Not Just At Stand-Off Locations, China Ramping Up Its Military Infrastructure Across The LAC: Report

China has been on a spree to overhaul its military infrastructure across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and not just at the stand-off locations in the Eastern Ladakh region where both India and China have heavily deployed their men and machines, reports Hindustan Times.

Indian officials suspect that the massive overhaul of infrastructure and rapid militarisation of the LAC may be linked to the continuing efforts by President Xi Jinping to drive Sinicisation of Tibet with Han domination over Buddhist Lhasa.

The officials said that ordinarily they would have expected the mobilisation and overhaul to be limited to the stand-off points in a bid to ward off any possible threat by India to the occupied Aksai Chin territory.

According to the officials, recent satellite imagery shows shelters to house fighter jets in an excavated hill at Gonggar airbase in Lhasa, massive storage facility at Golmud in Qinghai province, a new road between Xinjiang region’s Kanxiwar to the Hotan airbase and border upgrade at Nyangulu and Nyingchi across Arunachal Pradesh.

However, in light of the Chinese effort to militarise the entire autonomous region through infrastructure upgrade, the officials suspect that it could be a push to increase China's stranglehold on the autonomous region.

It should also be noted that on 20 August this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping had called for the need to build an "impregnable fortress" to maintain peace and stability in Tibet. He had then talked of an ironclad shield to ensure stability in the region. He had directed the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to solidify border defences and ensure frontier security in Tibet.

Interestingly, President Xi had then also asked his party leaders to "plant the seeds of loving China in the depths of the heart of every (Tibetan) youth."

Meanwhile, China is also preparing for the succession of the temporal leader of the Tibetans so the CCP can control Buddhist culture while the PLA builds military wall on the border with India.