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Watching The Dragon: The China-Pak Link-Up
In its global strategy of enlarging its influential presence in the Asia-Pacific region and in that process encircle India which it sees as its Asian rival there are reports that China is about to establish a link-up with Pakistan through occupied Kashmir which could have direct military implication. This is indicated in the Defense Ministry's annual report for 2008-09 tabled in Rajya Sabha recently.
China had seized 38,000 sq km in Jammu and Kashmir during the 1962 war with India, while Pakistan unilaterally ceded another 5,120 sq km territory it had occupied in 1947-48 to China under a pact in 1963. There is also increasing concern about the enhanced military assistance China is providing to Pakistan.
Chinese military posturing along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh, of which Beijing claims about 90,000 sq km territory as its own, particularly its positioning 30 military divisions that indulged in frequent incursions across the line is another thorn in the flesh. Of course the two neighbors are engaged in negotiations on the 4,500-km boundary dispute and have agreed to maintain peace through mutually agreed confidence building measures, pending final settlement.
However, In the backdrop of greatly increasing military prowess of China, India should keep itself in readiness to counter any measures having the potential to adversely impact on our security and sovereignty.
It is to be noted that China's 2008 White Paper on Defense outlined its policy on developing strategic missiles, space-based assets and blue-water naval capabilities, raising Chinese defense expenditure (that stood at seven per cent of its GDP) by double digits over the last two decades.
"China's stated objectives, in their White Paper, of developing strategic missile and space-based assets and of rapidly enhancing its blue-water navy to conduct operations in distant waters, as well as the systematic upgrading of infrastructure, reconnaissance and surveillance, quick response and operational capabilities in the border areas, will have an effect on the overall military environment in the neighborhood of India," the report had pointed out.
Although we have a strategic and cooperative partnership with China, which had further progressed during high-level visits in 2008-09, and Beijing's stated policy in its White Paper "never to seek hegemony or engage in military expansion in the future, no matter how developed it became." is reassuring, China's armed forces' modernization need to be "monitored carefully" for implications on India's defense and security.
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