The United States Department of Defence’s annual report submitted to the US Congress on military developments involving China mentions the Indo-China tensions along the LAC. The department, in the report submitted on November 3, also refers to the creation of a 100-home Chinese village in Arunachal Pradesh.
The report titled ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China’ highlights that China’s military has likely gained real-world operational and tactical experience during the standoff. It notes that negotiations between Beijing and New Delhi are progressing “slowly” to resolve the 18-month military standoff along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
It says that despite the ongoing diplomatic and military dialogues to reduce border tensions, China has continued taking “incremental and tactical actions to press its claims at the LAC.” And “sometime in 2020,” China “built a large 100-home civilian village inside disputed territory” between Tibet Autonomous Region and India’s Arunachal Pradesh.”
These and other infrastructure development efforts along the India-China boundary “have been a source of consternation in the Indian government and media,” the report reads, adding “Despite agreements to disengage in the spring of 2021, both sides maintain troops along the LAC as Corps Commander-level negotiations progress slowly.”
The chapter on the Indo-China standoff begins by mentioning that as of June 2021, “the PRC and India continue to maintain large-scale deployments along the LAC and make reparations to sustain these forces while disengagement negotiations have made limited progress.”
It further says that beginning May 2020, the PLA “launched incursions into customarily Indian-controlled territory across the border and has concentrated troops at several standoff locations along the LAC. In addition, a substantial reserve force from the Tibet and Xinjiang Military Districts were deployed to the interior of Western China to provide a rapid response”.
It also mentions the violent clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in June 2020, “which led to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers… the first loss of life on the LAC since 1975”.
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Further, the report reads that in February 2021, China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) announced posthumous awards for four PLA soldiers, though the total number of PRC casualties remains unknown.
In response to the clashes, China’s Western Theatre Command, which is responsible for the border with India, “led a large-scale mobilization and deployment of PLA forces along the LAC”.
The chapter says that China has “attempted to blame India for provoking the standoff through India’s increased infrastructure development near the LAC. Asserting that its deployments to the LAC were in response to Indian provocation, Beijing has refused to withdraw any forces until India’s forces have withdrawn behind the PRC’s version of the LAC and ceased infrastructure improvements in the area.”
But the report mentioned that China has also “expressed its aim to prevent the standoff from worsening into a wider military conflict” and has “voiced its intent to return bilateral relations with New Delhi to a state of economic and diplomatic cooperation it had perceived to be improving since the 2017 Doklam standoff”.
It stated that China’s state-controlled media “forcefully asserted China’s intent to refuse any territorial concessions demanded by India” but its officials, though their statements “had also sought unsuccessfully to prevent India from deepening its relationship with the United States during and subsequent to the standoff, while accusing India of being a mere ‘instrument’ of US policy in the region.”