Here's the link to an Issue Brief (co-authored with Kailash Prasad) on the Sino-Indian border infrastructure, published recently by ORF. The brief looks at the recent Chinese infrastructural developments along the Sino-Indian border, including building of highways, road links and oil pipelines that have improved the country's force deployment and sustenance capabilities. The paper also assesses India’s infrastructure initiatives on the border front and argues that it is inadequate, especially in light of the Chinese developments.
There is a clear military imbalance between the two, in terms of equipments and units as well as the physical infrastructure.
In the last few years, the infrastructural developments that China has undertaken in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as well as on the Indo-China border provide the potential to the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) to mobilize forces and equipment onto Indian borders in a much shorter span of time. China now has a 40,000-km road network in Tibet, apart from rail links like the 1,118-km one from Lhasa to Gormo in Qinghai province. This would enable China to mobilize large forces by train and by road onto Indian borders. Earlier this exercise not only took a long time but also was impossible during winter. The new rail line into Tibet, and expressways, have changed the scenario totally.
For the full report, click here.
Type rest of the post here
No comments:
Post a Comment