China’s actions led to distrust, confrontation: Army chief

NEW DELHI: China’s rising footprint in India’s neighbourhood, coupled with that country’s attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along disputed borders, has led to confrontation and mutual distrust, army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane said on Friday.

His comments, at a seminar on evolving security challenges in the country’s North-east and the way forward, come at a time when disengagement between Indian and Chinese troops is underway in the Pangong Tso area of eastern Ladakh.

Experts said China’s actions were aimed at curtailing India’s leadership role in the region. “China’s aggressive behaviour along the Line of Actual Control as part of its strategy of military coercion, and increased footprint and investments in India’s neighborhood aim at restricting India strategic space and leadership role,” said Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia (retd), a former director general of military operations.

The army chief said the regional security environment was characterised by Chinese belligerence in the Indo-pacific, Beijing’s hostility towards weaker nations and its relentless drive to create regional dependencies through steps such as the multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative – a state-backed global infrastructure development project covering scores of countries.

Since it was unveiled in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, BRI has expanded to cover a vast swath of territory from South America to the Arctic, and includes plans to build a vast network of highways, ports, power plants, pipelines and other infrastructure. Both India and the US oppose BRI because it favours Chinese firms and Beijing employs predatory lending practices. “The resultant Sino-us rivalry has created regional imbalances and instability.” He said a renewed focus on the North-east was in order in the wake of the ongoing security dynamics across India’s borders and the impact of the Covid-19. “Although endowed with natural resources, the North-east is a laggard in growth and development. Protracted insurgencies, legacy issues further accentuated after partition and inefficient integration with rest of India account for much of what the region faces today.”

I think this will not affect the issues of Jammu & Kashmir. The entire population is so concerned, not just about Article 370. Downgrading the state to a Union territory, which was not a BJP agenda, and the division of the state, have hurt everybody; we’ve been reduced to ashes. I’ve only seen upgradation of UTS into states, and my own state, which is among the largest and oldest states in the country, has been made a UT. Nobody can digest that.

I don’t know in which sense, and most of the people didn’t know the background. A lot of people thought the Prime Minister was doing it artificially, because why should he bother that a Congressman is going. As I said, the words he used were for me, but our emotion was in a different context.

The party president had written a long letter appreciating my work all through, as general secretary, as LOP. She also said that we have to work together to strengthen the organisation, and after that I met her. She said we have to prepare for elections.

We met, we met. Once, twice.

I think the honourable Prime Minister was not fair by taking the Congress’s name. It was all political parties; they were all unanimous in having the discussion in RS. He should have used the word ‘Opposition’ and not Congress. There has to be a dif

I supported Rahul Gandhi, but he resigned. We spent one hour convincing him, but he said no. So once he’s out, who’s there? We requested Mrs Gandhi, she said no. Then there was a break for one hour. Then we all got together and told her that you have to be there. Some said six months, some said four months — we all decided one year. We had no president, the elected one had resigned. And so when we wrote the letter, there was no president and we were talking of a third person.

Let the bridge come.