India India - China Relations

[Nilgiri]

Who owns it ? Jack Ma ?

Indeed alibaba owns it, they bought it around 2015. A whole bunch of editors and columnists were fired...it caused huge amount of controversy at the time, and results at SCMP overall is there to see for everyone.

 

[SHOX]

Indeed alibaba owns it, they bought it around 2015. A whole bunch of editors and columnists were fired...it caused huge amount of controversy at the time, and results at SCMP overall is there to see for everyone.

Well, its nothing new of States to have international media outlets that portray a neutral and sometimes anti-establishment views. Its an overall media marketing.

 

[Blackeyes90]

WORLD WAR 3 fears have erupted again after an expert warned India will "never back down" from conflict with its bitter rival China over its disputed border.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed Asian giants have reached boiling point following clashes over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh and this week an expert told Express.co.uk India will always be “better prepared” for all-out-war to defend itself. Jayadeva Ranade, former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat and Government of India warned the potential for conflict over the contested border was rising as “China becomes more expansionist and strives to become the unrivalled predominant power in the region”.

He said although India had sought to “avoid” war, the nation would “not back down” and would always be “better prepared” for conflict against its foe.

Mr Ranade, President of the Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, said: “There is concern that there could be future conflicts.

“As China becomes more expansionist and strives to become the unrivalled predominant power in the region, the potential for conflict will increase. This is likely to include the maritime region too.

“While India has always sought to avoid conflict or confrontation with China, India will not back down from a conflict.

“With the passage of time, India will be still better prepared.”

The Asian giants have rival claims to vast swathes of territory along their mountainous 3,500 km (2,173 miles) border, but the disputes have remained largely peaceful since the 1962 war.

However deadly conflict erupted in June when there were losses on both sides of the battle following a violent face-off between China and India at Galwan Valley, one of the four clash points in the eastern Ladakh sector.

Since then, discussions between senior military officials aimed at easing tensions between the pair have failed to reach a breakthrough.

Mr Ranade said this was because Beijing had “destroyed whatever little trust had been built” with India.

He said: “A number of rounds of border talks have been held, but these have made no headway with the Chinese consistently declining to exchange maps or have substantive discussions.

“China's intention appears to be to resolve the border issue at a time when they feel they can dictate, and compel, India to accept the terms.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...a-border-war-Ladakh-border-china-india-attack

 

[Nilgiri]

China was frankly really dumb to engage like this.

So much is now spoiled irreparably for very long time...and India will ramp up its guard intensely with more steely determination compared to before.

That too in an area far from PLA's peak or average warfighting potential (using more lower level terrain China in East + seaboard etc as reference).

Something is going on inside China with Xi and CCP...it may only be known much much later looking back. But every neighbour has to be prepped for worst case scenarios as best they can be.

 

[Blackeyes90]

China was frankly really dumb to engage like this.

So much is now spoiled irreparably for very long time...and India will ramp up its guard intensely with more steely determination compared to before.

That too in an area far from PLA's peak or average warfighting potential (using more lower level terrain China in East + seaboard etc as reference).

Something is going on inside China with Xi and CCP...it may only be known much much later looking back. But every neighbour has to be prepped for worst case scenarios as best they can be.

India needs to built roads and facilities in the region to counter Chinese manoevours.

 

[Blackeyes90]

Stung by China’s chicanery along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, that resulted in a savage clash in Galwan valley on June 15 in which 20 Indian soldiers died, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has gone into overdrive, clearing procurement of materiel worth billions of rupees.

On July 2, the MoD approved acquisition of an assortment of missiles, software defined radios, 33 fighters from Russia, apart from the proposal to upgrade BMP infantry combat vehicles, all for an estimated Rs 389 billion.

A raft of proposals initiated alongside include the import of 72,000 Sig 916 assault rifles from the US, six Boeing P-8I Neptune long-range maritime multi-mission aircraft, six Predator-B armed drones, 200 Spike anti-tank guided missiles, and 20 launchers.

Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), loitering munitions, man-portable surface-to-air missiles, besides a varied range of other ammunition, mostly from the US and Israel, complete the list of the planned military buys.

Reviving a decade-old project, MoD has also approved the emergency procurement of lightweight tanks, suitable for high-altitude conditions where the deployment of T-90s and T-72M1 main battle tanks is operationally cumbersome and transporting them to Ladakh by Indian Air Force transporters cost-prohibitive.

There is no denying that we are poised for a prolonged stand-off with the Chinese military, and regardless of how it pans out, the Indian troops will need to maintain a formidable and permanent presence along the LAC during and after the upcoming winter months. Viewed against this backdrop, the surge in procurement approvals is understandable, but it also raises more fundamental questions about defence planning.

Without amplifying the mortifying saga of Indian defence planning, its complications can be concisely thus summarised: there is – and has never been – an overarching planning organisation in the MoD capable of formulating financially viable and composite plans, including the military materiel procurement plans, and to oversee their implementation.

What we have instead are jerky, financially unviable, and disjointed plans for the armed forces and other organisations like the Border Roads Organisation and the Indian Coast Guard.

Logically, composite defence planning must encompass all the myriad organisations administered by the MoD, instead of being confined strictly to the services. This is the only way of ensuring that the plans are financially viable, and every organisation works in tandem to achieve the common goals.

The 13th five-year plan (2017-22) presented at the United Commanders’ Conference in July 2017, for instance, envisaged an outlay of Rs 26.85 trillion, excluding some important elements like the outlay on defence pensions which has doubled over the past one decade. This would have necessitated more than doubling of the defence budget to finance the plan which would be a virtual impossibility.

This was not the first instance of its kind. It is well documented that the 11th defence five-year plan (2007-12) got grounded because the outlay envisaged by the planners was much beyond what the Ministry of Finance (MoF) considered feasible. For the 12th plan, MoF’s consent was not even sought.

Thereafter, probably to give defence planning a fresh start, the federal government constituted a high-powered Defence Planning Committee (DPC) in April 2018, to facilitate the formulation of a comprehensive 15-year integrated perspective plan for India’s military.

Other than addressing defence diplomacy issues, the DPC was also tasked to prepare the National Security Strategy and a capability development plan, focussing on improving the military manufacturing ecosystem in India, defence acquisitions and overall infrastructure development.

The DPC was swift in setting up four sub-committees on policy and strategy, plans and capability development, defence diplomacy and defence manufacturing ecosystem. Regrettably, nothing has been heard from any of these committees since. That seemingly was the DPC’s last hurrah, after which silence has prevailed.

Chaired by the National Security Advisor, with the service chiefs, defence, expenditure and foreign secretaries as its members, and the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff as member-secretary, it was touted as a panacea for all ills besetting India’s defence planning.

But soon this was nudged aside by the newly appointed Chief of Defence Staff and the Department of Military Affairs he was to head. Hence, the CDS was now handed the responsibility of joint military planning in all its financial, operational, training, and organisational aspects. This, it seems, is still a work in progress.

Because of the defence establishment’s compulsive obsession with confidentiality, it is difficult to evaluate what the DPC has to show for its labours over the last two years. It is also not known what goals the previous and the current defence plans had set themselves and what was eventually achieved.

If anything, the current spurt in approvals for materiel procurement seems to indicate a panicky response to the military situation on the northern borders with China. Even basics like winter clothing seem not to have been catered for, and dependence on foreign vendors for these essential items continues apace.

Eventually, it may end up as a case of too little, too late, as delivery of a large proportion of the proposed weapon systems and platforms will take at least a couple of years to be completed; their induction and deployment thereafter will take even more time. This is a sad commentary on the state of defence planning.

Ironically, the procurement history of 1962, when India fought a disastrous border war with China and in 1999 when it battled Pakistan in the Kargil mountains, seems to be repeating itself, ably validating George Bernard Shaw’s quip: ‘If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.’

More worryingly, the procurements now being processed by the MoD, largely from overseas vendors or involving indigenous licensed manufacturing, could also restrict the financial space for future defence planning.

It is difficult, if not impossible for now, to tabulate the total cost of procurements approved over the past month as well as the recurring expenditure on transportation, habitation and winter stocking for additional troops being stationed in Ladakh. But there is little doubt that it will be astronomical, and without doubt necessitate an exponential hike in defence spending, far in excess of what has been the recent trend.

It is also not known if MoD has done its math, factoring in the long-term economic impact of the enduring COVID-19 pandemic on one hand and the rising cost of salaries and pensions on the other. In all likelihood, it has not.

Rhetorical claims that adequate funding will not be a handicap in the country’s defence preparedness ring hollow in face of the escalating gap between the requirements projected by the services and the actual allocation. Over the past decade, this has widened to Rs 1.03 trillion from Rs 230 billion, registering almost a fourfold hike.

In an unusual move in July 2019, the government opted to amend the terms of reference of the 15th Finance Commission by requiring it to address concerns over the inadequacy of funds for defence and internal security.

The Finance Commission’s constitutional mandate, however, is to recommend equitable distribution of tax revenues between the Union and the states, and further amongst the states themselves. Its remit by no means extends to advising the government on how to improve its revenues, which is what fundamentally besets defence planning.

The prevailing chasm in India’s military capability is so expansive and the armed forces’ requirement so enormous that no enhancement in outlay will ever be enough. At any rate, the extent of increase will always be circumscribed by the government’s ability to generate additional revenue primarily through taxation, borrowings, and disinvestment.

There is no shame in acknowledging that the government revenues will always be finite and susceptible to equally pressing requirements of other public sectors like health, education, and infrastructure. The unvarnished truth is that the government cannot allocate more funds for defence or other sectors if it simply does not have enough money to distribute.

This zero-sum game of resource allocation renders it difficult, if not impossible, to service defence plans premised on unrealistic financial assumptions. This reality cannot be wished away by making ostentatious promises of more funds for defence. Fine words butter no parsnips.

Amit Cowshish is former Financial Advisor (Acquisitions), Ministry of Defence.
https://thewire.in/security/india-defence-planning-procurement-finance-ministry

 

[Saithan]

It’s a difficult situation to be in. Imo I think india should be glad it’s flanked by Pakistan and Bangladesh. Neither interested in expanding their territory. Kashmir and that region being an exception.

But China most definitely isn’t shy of expanding upon their claim. Being big and having a solid economy.

 

[Maximilian Veers]

China was frankly really dumb to engage like this.

So much is now spoiled irreparably for very long time...and India will ramp up its guard intensely with more steely determination compared to before.

That too in an area far from PLA's peak or average warfighting potential (using more lower level terrain China in East + seaboard etc as reference).

Something is going on inside China with Xi and CCP...it may only be known much much later looking back. But every neighbour has to be prepped for worst case scenarios as best they can be.

Same thing I mentioned in the other thread. Chinese are simply not prepared to deal with this. Either the Chinese have consumed their own propaganda and have too high an opinion of themselves or there is something else going on internally forcing the Chinese to take these steps. It really makes little sense.

As for the rumors of war are concerned, The last two-three weeks the rumors have increased drastically among military circles.

 

[SHOX]

India needs to built roads and facilities in the region to counter Chinese manoevours.

One of the few side points of the conflicts were because of our road buildup. Its not as good as on the chinese side. But the work is being done at a rapid pace. Alternative all weather routes are being created.

 

[SHOX]

Even as New Delhi and Beijing continue to hold talks over the military de-escalation in Pangong Tso and Depsang areas of eastern Ladakh, China is bolstering its military infrastructure in the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and has begun construction of massive habitat for a large troop formation, apart from road constructions and deployment of strategic missiles, sources said.

“The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is building a brigade-size garrison at Gyantse in Tibet which appears to be meant for the ground forces. The construction was started after January 2020 and is likely to be completed by the spring of 2021,” said a source.

The new garrison includes six battalion area headquarters and an administration area, and more than 600 vehicle and equipment sheds, the source added. Also, an artillery battalion is located around 14 km from Gyantse.


An Army officer, on condition of anonymity, said: “The new brigade is located at a point from where it will be able to move to the western part of the Arunachal Pradesh and also to Sikkim.” Tawang, which lies in the western part of Arunachal Pradesh, has been a major point of contention between India and China. The officer added: “The images of June and July confirm that China is building connecting roads to the border areas at multiple points in the eastern sector.” Another source pointed out the deployment of missiles. “For the first time, a target acquisition radar associated with the S-300 has been installed at Malan Airfield under the Western Theatre Command (WTC),” the source said.

The Chinese have deployed the missiles as air defence cover as their troops are out in open, said another senior army officer on the condition of anonymity. “Their plans are going ahead keeping both offensive and defensive military tactics in mind.”

The tensions along the 3,488 km-long LAC have been high since the first week of May when the Indian troops and the Chinese PLA clashed at Finger 4 in the easter Ladakh. There has been precautionary deployment by India all along the LAC.

In the last few months, there have been multiple military and diplomatic level talks where both sides have agreed to resolve the issues peacefully, but the Chinese have not disengaged their troops from various locations even after the agreements in the meetings, said a source.

‘Solution must be predicated on honouring all agreements’

A solution to the border row with China must be predicated on honouring all agreements and understandings without attempting to alter the status quo unilaterally, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said, in a clear assertion of India’s position on the issue.

Several rounds of talks, pullback not achieved

The two countries have been engaged in a stand-off since April over tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh. Several rounds of talks — military and diplomatic — have followed the June 15 violent stand-off but full de-escalation is yet to be achieved.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/aug/27/massive-chinese-build-up-along-line-of-actual-control-2188848.html

 

[SHOX]

In June, soldiers from India and China engaged in a violent skirmish along the two countries’ unmarked border in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed, along with an unspecified number of their Chinese counterparts, in what was the first such confrontation since 1975 that resulted in fatalities.

New Delhi and Beijing have now embarked on a fitful process of de-escalation. But even as the two parties seek to restore some semblance of normalcy along their shared border, a critical question lingers: Why was India’s security establishment seemingly blindsided by China? Local officials in Ladakh have in fact been sounding the alarm about Chinese forays into Indian territory for years, a fact that points to a complete breakdown in New Delhi’s intelligence gathering and risk assessment.

It wouldn’t be the first time. And India doesn’t seem to be learning crucial lessons from previous security failures.

In the late 1950s, after Indian and Chinese forces engaged in minor clashes, China laid claim to significant tracts of territory along their disputed border. In response, New Delhi adopted its so-called forward policy, sending in small contingents of lightly armed soldiers to assert India’s hold over the contested areas. But without adequate firepower or logistical support, the policy had disastrous consequences: The strategy proved needlessly provocative in October 1962, when the battle-hardened People’s Liberation Army attacked in force. The Indian military, while displaying considerable valor, simply collapsed before the onslaught. At its climax, the town of Tezpur in India’s northeast had to be evacuated in the face of advancing forces. India doesn’t seem to be learning crucial lessons from previous security failures.The ease with which China overran Indian positions was also reflected in its seizure of the Galwan Valley in Ladakh. Having demonstrated its ability to crush the Indian forces if needed, China announced a unilateral cease-fire the next month and withdrew from much of the Galwan Valley, among other locations. But it retained much of the Aksai Chin plateau, an area of land roughly comparable in size to Switzerland.

How could India’s policymakers allow such a colossal error of judgment? The failure stemmed from structural problems in India’s security apparatus: The Intelligence Bureau, the country’s apex intelligence organization, was simultaneously responsible for the collection, collation, and assessment of intelligence. This was a flawed system because there was no meaningful external scrutiny of its conclusions that could detect weaknesses in their sourcing and analytic reasoning. Worse still, there were no provisions for parliamentary oversight—a critical component common in many other countries. The Intelligence Bureau was also starved of resources and mostly marginalized from India’s policymaking process. And because the bureau was eager to support a policy that was designed to limit defense expenditures, it downplayed the imminent danger of Chinese aggression to policymakers, leading them to continue their forward policy and dismiss the mounting Chinese threats. Not surprisingly, India found itself grossly unprepared to tackle China’s onslaught.

The military debacle of 1962 served as an important wake-up call for India. New Delhi embarked on a significant military modernization program. India authorized 10 new mountain warfare divisions as part of an expansion of the Indian Army and revamped its intelligence collection system by establishing a new Directorate General of Security focused on external intelligence. As a result of these advances, India became better prepared to deal with new threats. For example, when Pakistan sought to infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir with special agents in 1965, Indian forces were ready to respond with alacrity: The military sealed the disputed border, an action that took away Pakistan’s ability to subsequently surprise India when it launched its so-called Operation Grand Slam attack later that year to seize Indian territory. Pakistan’s commitment of forces to that operation, and its inability to break through the now well-fortified Indian lines, created an opening for India to counterattack across the international border in Punjab and at one point threaten the major Pakistani city of Lahore. While the war eventually ended in a rough The military debacle of 1962 served as an important wake-up call for India.stalemate, this was still a far more impressive performance by Indian forces than in 1962.

But India’s military didn’t keep up its pace of progress. In 1999, a now sprawling Indian military was caught napping when Pakistan made significant incursions across the so-called Line of Control. On May 3 of that year, an Indian shepherd notified local authorities that he had observed what seemed to be a cross-border intrusion. But strangely, the military and intelligence authorities ignored this and several other local warnings, allowing Islamabad to consolidate its position. Pakistan’s advances involved nearly 2,000 soldiers, who captured a 62-mile stretch of land as much as 6 miles deep within Indian territory. It was an incursion so extensive that the Indian Army had to call in aerial support to dislodge the intruders from the commanding heights they had occupied. But even the Air Force’s involvement was delayed: The Army took too long to share intelligence, which in turn slowed the eventual response.

After the conclusion of the conflict, the Kargil Review Committee was established to examine the war’s causes and India’s response to it. Among its findings was that there was “no institutional mechanism for co-ordination or objective-oriented interaction between the (intelligence) agencies and consumers at different levels” nor was there a mechanism “for tasking the agencies, monitoring their performance and reviewing their records to evaluate their quality.” The feedback led to the establishment of two new intelligence bodies—the Defence Intelligence Agency and the National Technical Research Organisation—to coordinate among various agencies. However, a core problem identified in the Kargil report remains unaddressed to this day: the need for a rigorous central system for reconciling intelligence findings and providing consensus reports to policymakers at the pace mandated by often fast-moving crises. (The U.K. Joint Intelligence Committee and U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence are examples of such systems.) The absence of such a central system in the Indian context leads to poor interagency information-sharing, the provision of improperly processed (evaluated and contextualized) intelligence to policymakers, and inadequate coordination of agencies to refocus on an emerging threat.

A disjointed Indian intelligence system appears to have permitted China the crucial time window to initially move forces into the contested areas of Ladakh. India in fact holds a military advantage against China in its border areas, leaving Beijing with only one pathway to create a localized force advantage: through deception. And so it was this year. China’s army began a major military exercise near Indian border areas from January as a distraction, later diverting forces to Ladakh to begin its occupation. Such significant Chinese activities should have merited exceptionally close monitoring and interagency evaluation by Indian intelligence services.

Individual agencies did in fact report suspicious Chinese movements toward Ladakh through February and March, but the intelligence clearly didn’t reach top policymakers—at least not in a way that conveyed enough urgency. As a result of this lapse, Chinese forces moved in to hold areas of Ladakh, cutting off Indian border patrol posts from each other and blocking critical roads connecting the mountainous region. By the time Indian forces received accurate intelligence regarding the Chinese incursions, their only realistic response involved rushing in troops from Leh, the regional capital. Under a more effective national intelligence system, Indian forces would have received enough prior warning to be in position to block Chinese troops as they attempted to make incursions. They instead had to play catch-up to halt further Chinese advances, with the invading forces also able to consolidate their presence on the ground they had gained.

These intelligence failures have persisted, as with other intractable issues in India’s national security system, due to the lack of votes to be won for implementing needed reforms. Reports are commissioned following major intelligence failures, such as after the Kargil War or 2008 Mumbai attacks, but their reform recommendations have only ever been partly implemented. In a political system where little happens without the personalized attention of the prime minister, constructing a more centralized and rigorous intelligence system would entail the Prime Minister’s Office spending its limited time and energy on confronting the bureaucratic interests of the disparate intelligence agencies, for little political reward.

The question now is whether New Delhi will even admit it experienced an intelligence failure this year, especially given the Narendra Modi-led government’s desire to project itself as strong. And even if India were to conduct an official review to determine the points of failure in its intelligence system, it would likely uncover the same recommendations that previous such studies have arrived at: to establish parliamentary oversight of the intelligence services, and thus improve their performance through scrutiny, and to create a director of national intelligence staff to ensure interagency development of timely intelligence products for political decision-makers. In India’s prime minister-centric political system, however, both reforms will require political will—and the admission of weakness—from Modi. Given that Modi’s early responses to the crisis were to deny any Chinese incursion had taken place, and with the national media’s focus now moving toward the worsening Indian coronavirus epidemic, these intelligence reform outcomes are unlikely.

China Is Taking Advantage of India’s Intelligence Failures

New Delhi has failed to learn from its mistakes.

foreignpolicy.com

 

[KKF 2.0]

What's the main reason that India is so reluctant to react appropriately to China? Trade? Nuclear weapons?

 

[SHOX]

What's the main reason that India is so reluctant to react appropriately to China? Trade? Nuclear weapons?

I think the gap economic and military has only widened and that is why India is treading carefully and sometimes back. But when push comes to shove, we gotta forget that and take actions, which was evident after the ladakh fiasco.

 

[Nilgiri]

Picture of Chinese soldier's tombstone goes viral on social media, speaks of Chinese PLA losses in Galwan Valley clash

Picture of Chinese soldiers tombstone goes viral on social media, speaks of Chinese PLA losses in Galwan Valley clash

Reports are there that the Chinese soldier who put a photo of the tomb has been sent to jail by the Xi Jinping government of China.

zeenews.india.com

Reports are there that the Chinese soldier who put a photo of the tomb has been sent to jail by the Xi Jinping government of China.

A picture of a Chinese soldier's grave killed in Galwan valley is going viral on social media. The picture of a tombstone identifying a Chinese soldier was shared on Chinese social media platform and is perhaps the first possible evidence of any Chinese casualty in violent Glawan valley clash on June 15.

The image was shared on a military forum describing in detail about the tombstone of the soldier, identified as Chen Xiangrong. The picture gained traction in India with many Twitter users sharing it widely.


Written in Mandarin, the epitaph reads, "Tomb of Chen Xiangro. Soldier of the 69316 troops, from Pingnan, Fujian. He sacrificed his life in the struggle against India’s border troops in June 2020 and was posthumously remembered by the Central Military Commission." The tombstone also says that the soldier who was KIA was born in December 2001 and was just 19-year-old.

Reports are there that the Chinese soldier who put a photo of the tomb has been sent to jail by the Xi Jinping government of China.

So far, there has been no response from the Chinese government or the Army on the existence of the alleged tombstone, whose picture has gone viral on social media.

At least 20 Indian soldiers, including the commanding officer of the 16 Bihar infantry regiment Colonel B Santosh Babu, lost their lives in the PLA ambush.

The India-China standoff in eastern Ladakh started in early May and the deadlock continues with heavy mobilisation on both sides despite several rounds of disengagement talks between both sides.

 

[Nilgiri]

The truth tends to leak out faster than usual in this day and age from totalitarian regimes even.

 

[Nilgiri]

Talk of PLA mutiny is probably too much, but there is lot of salient points brought up that we talked about before @SHOX @Paro

 

[Ryder]

How many losses did the Chinese have in this clash?

 

[Nilgiri]

How many losses did the Chinese have in this clash?

Short answer: unknown...I suppose now 1 technically has been confirmed for now...if this pic is real.

Other intel sources have it much higher of course, but we can't know for sure right now in an official capacity till PRC owns up to something.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that either, they still haven't given numbers on many clashes they have had with Vietnam (post 1979 war) for example either.

 

[Ryder]

Short answer: unknown...I suppose now 1 technically has been confirmed for now...if this pic is real.

Other intel sources have it much higher of course, but we can't know for sure right now in an official capacity till PRC owns up to something.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that either, they still haven't given numbers on many clashes they have had with Vietnam (post 1979 war) for example either.

Communist regimes are all like this they will always suppress their casualties because it does not look good on their part, may cause a munity or they have to keep that strong image of a tough guy to the world and their people.

I think we will never find out but this still exposes the Chinese military weakness especially when China believes it can take on the USA.

 

[SHOX]

India has withdrawn from a multilateral war game 'Kavkaz 2020' in Russia next month, citing China's participation. China, Pakistan and a number of other member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are expected to participate in the strategic command-post exercise.

The exercise is scheduled to be held in the Astrakhan region in southern Russia from September 15 to 26.

India cannot be seen to be participating with China in an exercise when the two armies are involved in a standoff, sources said on Saturday.

The Indian and Chinese armies have been locked in a tense standoff in eastern Ladakh for over three-and-half-months despite multiple rounds of diplomatic and military talks. The tension escalated after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the Galwan Valley clash in which Chinese military also suffered casualties.

In June, a tri-services contingent from India participated at the Victory Day Parade at the iconic Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. A contingent from China had also attended it.

Russia earlier said India and China should resolve the border dispute through talks and that a "constructive" relationship between the two countries was important for regional stability.

The SCO, seen as a counterweight to NATO, has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations which accounts for almost 44% of the world population stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea. The aim of the SCO is to maintain peace, stability and security of the region. India became a member of SCO in 2017.

Border Standoff with China in Mind, India Withdraws from Multilateral War Exercise in Russia - News18

India cannot be seen to be participating with China in an exercise when the two armies are involved in a standoff, sources said on Saturday.

www.news18.com