China remains a formidable challenge: Navy chief

Navy chief Admiral R. Hari Kumar has said China has increased its presence not only along India’s land borders, but also in the maritime domain by leveraging anti-piracy operations to normalise its naval presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Speaking on the security challenges that India faces, the Navy chief noted that China had maintained continuous presence in the IOR since 2008 using anti-piracy operations “as the reason”. “At any point we have anything between five to eight Chinese Navy units, be it warships or research vessels and a host of Chinese fishing vessels operating in the IOR,” Admiral Kumar said. He said China now had a base in Djibouti, and was also involved in the development of various ports in the IOR, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan and many other countries.

Meanwhile, Army chief General Manoj Pande said at a separate event that there are still two friction points at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh that India and China need to move forward. “I am sure we will be able to find resolution towards these two friction points. That is our immediate aim to disengage from these friction points before we look at the next step of de-escalation, which will involve pullback by troops and tanks,” General Pande said. He said the lessons learnt were to maintain a high level of operational preparedness at all times and the importance of infrastructure development.

India and China had undertaken pullback from Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs area last week as part of the latest round of disengagement towards ending the stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. The village head of one of the last settlements along the LAC in Ladakh’s Chushul said that in the past year at least three large grazing areas near the village have been turned into “no man’s land” or “buffer zones” after Indian troops pulled back from patrolling points in Kugrang Valley that includes patrolling points (PP) 15, 16 and 17.

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