China has vastly increased its military infrastructure, not only around the fighting locations, but along other stretches of the Royal Line of Control under the Western Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army. The deployment and renewed focus on improving infrastructure has led Indian officials to suspect that the rapid militarization of the border may also be related to President Xi Jinping’s continued efforts to push the sinicization of Tibet under Han rule over the Buddhist Lhasa.
“Generally, we would have expected that the mobilization and the focus of infrastructure improvement would be limited to the points of confrontation, mainly intended to protect against any armed threats from India to the occupied Aksai Chin. But this is not the case, ”said a leading national security planner. “There has been a clear effort to militarize the autonomous community by improving infrastructure.”
The official cited recent satellite images from the Tibet region showing shelters to house fighter jets on a hill dug out of the Gonggar Air Base in Lhasa, a mass storage facility in Golmud in Qinghai province, a new highway between Kanxiwar. from the Xinjiang region, used as a forward deployment base during the 1962 War, to the Hotan air base and the upgrading of the border at Nyangulu and Nyingchi via Arunachal Pradesh. Nyangulu, 60 kilometers from the Arunachal border, was again used as an advance camp for the PLA in the 1962 war.
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The development of Shiquanhe just 82 kilometers from the Demchok Line of Royal Control and the construction of shelters near the Mabdo La camp in occupied Aksai Chin means that while the focus of the global community will be on the confrontation between India and China , the Chinese communist leadership will continue to put its indelible stamp on Tibet.
A second official noted Supreme Leader Xi Jinping’s call on August 20, 2020 to build an “impregnable fortress” to maintain peace and stability in Tibet and spoke of an armored shield to ensure stability in the region. Speaking at the Communist Party Symposium on Labor in Tibet, Xi ordered party leaders to solidify border defenses, ensure border security in Tibet and plant “the seeds of love for China deep in the hearts of each young (Tibetan) “.
China’s concern for Tibet has intensified when the United States appointed Robert A Destro, undersecretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, as the new special coordinator for the Tibet issue on October 14 after a hiatus. four years. Tasked with a mandate to promote dialogue between the People’s Republic of China and the XIV Dalai Lama to protect the unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity of Tibetans, Destro met with Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government in exile, a day later in Washington. . This was the first time that a US State Department official met the leader of the Tibetan government in exile in six decades.
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While China has fiercely opposed the appointment of an American coordinator on Tibetan affairs, intelligence reports confirm that for the Tibetan Buddhist, the fourteenth Dalai Lama is still considered a living god and his images are prominently displayed in homes in the cities. outskirts of Lhasa. Beijing calls the Dalai Lama, whom India treats as a “guest of honor” and a spiritual leader, a separatist and a terrorist.
China is already preparing for the succession of the temporary leader of the Tibetans so that the communist party can control Buddhist culture while the PLA builds a military wall on the border with India.
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