Doklam team back in action for India
NEW DELHI: The team that crafted India’s response to the Doklam standoff in 2017 — PM Narendra Modi, NSA Ajit Doval, CDS General Bipin Rawat and foreign minister S Jaishankar — is also closely reviewing New Delhi’s response to Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.
NEWDELHI: India has pushed highaltitude warfare troops with support to the eastern Ladakh theatre to counter the aggressive posture of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China aimed at pushing New Delhi into stopping the construction of border infrastructure in the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector that may threaten the Lhasa-Kashgar highway in Aksai Chin.
The specialised Indian troops are familiar with the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China and are acclimatised to operating at rarefied altitudes.
The scale of PLA deployment in the region -- the strength of at least two brigades -- indicates that the move has the sanction of Beijing and is not adventurism by local military commanders.
“From Australia to Hong Kong to Taiwan to the South China Sea to India and right up to the US, a bellicose China is staring at the world for domination at all costs,” a senior government official said after a meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Tuesday.
This is the second time in three years that three men present at PM Modi’s strategy meeting -National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and foreign minister S Jaishankar -- are confronted with a similar situation.
This was the team that crafted India’s response to the Doklam standoff in 2017 that lasted 73 days. General Rawat was then the army chief and Jaishankar, India’s foreign secretary.
While India favours de-escalating the situation on the LAC through dialogue under the peace and tranquility mechanism that is in place, PM Modi’s Doklam team has been told to prepare for all eventualities, officials said.
“The Darbuk-Shyok-DBO road will be completed this year and will raise the Indian capacity
PM MODI’S DOKLAM TEAM HAS BEEN TOLD TO PREPARE FOR ALL EVENTUALITIES, OFFICIALS SAID
to rapidly deploy in the area. If the road project is blocked, the Indian Army will be forced to live off aerial supply lines and prepare for an arduous route linking Sansoma to Murgo to DBO through the glaciated Saser La,” a national security planner in the government said.
“China has built infrastructure within its own claim line without any objections from India, but is opposed to any Indian infrastructure build-up as if New Delhi has military objectives while Beijing has done this to promote tourism,” said a former army chief, referring to the infrastructure on the Chinese side where all military outposts are linked by metalled roads to the base camps.
While China has all plans to stare down India into submission with its all-weather ally Pakistan, New Delhi cannot afford to budge from its position, analysts said.
“The Chinese have initiated psychological operations through its mouthpieces to remind India of the 1962 border skirmish, but this is 2020 and the country’s leader is Narendra Modi,” said a senior cabinet minister.