July 19, 2017
An Indian leader claims:
“To attack India, China installs N-weapons in Pakistan”
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
In a new twist to the current India-China border dispute, a leading Indian political leader and former Defense Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Wednesday claimed that China has installed the nuclear bomb on Pakistan soil and is fully prepared to attack India.
“Today, India has immense threat from China. China is conspiring against India, taking Pakistan under its fold. I have been informed that China has installed nuclear bomb on Pakistani soil. China has prepared fully to attack India,” Yadav told the Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament).
"India is today facing a big danger from China. I have been cautioning the central government for years. China has joined hands with Pakistan. It has made full preparation to attack India," said the 77-year-old political leader.
Yadav said India's stand on Tibet, a reference to its acceptance that the region was part of China, was a "mistake" and the time has come to support its independence.
Tensions on the India-China border have escalated in recent weeks with both New Delhi and Beijing refusing to back down from their positions. What started as a cross-border dispute which centered on China's construction of a road project has now snowballed into something bigger.
Sikkim Standoff
Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face- off in the Doklam area of the Sikkim sector for over a month after Indian troops reportedly stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area.
China said that they were constructing the road within their territory and has been demanding immediate pull-out of the Indian troops from the disputed Doklam plateau.
New Delhi has expressed concern over the alleged road building, apprehending that it may allow Chinese troops to cut India's access to its northeastern states.
India has conveyed to the Chinese government that the road construction would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for it, according to the Press Trust of India.
Of the 3,488-km-long India-China border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in Sikkim.
China has reiterated its calls for India to withdraw troops from a disputed territory in the Himalayan mountains, to avoid an "escalation of the situation." It comes after China recently staged live-fire drills in the region.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang urged India to withdraw its troops from the area near the Chinese, Indian and Bhutanese borders.
"We have stated many times that we hope the Indian side will get a clear understanding of the situation (and) immediately take measures to withdraw the troops that illegally crossed the border back to the Indian side of the border,” Lu said.
He went on to state that Indian troops must withdraw before any talks can take place over the disputed territory.
China moves huge military hardware into Tibet
Meanwhile, the Chinese Army moved tens of thousands of tons of military hardware into the remote mountainous Tibet region after the standoff with Indian troops in the Doklam area in the Sikkim sector, the Press Trust of India Wednesday quoted a Chinese newspaper as reporting.
The vast haul was transported to a region south of the Kunlun Mountains in northern Tibet by the Western Theatre Command - which oversees the restive regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and handles border issues with India, reported the PLA Daily, the official mouthpiece of Chinese military.
Wang Dehua, an expert on South Asia studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the scale of the troop and equipment movement showed how much easier it is for China to defend its western borders. "Military operations are all about logistics," he said. "Now there is much better logistics support to the Tibet region."
Tibet’s government in exile holds rituals on eve of Dalai Lama's birthday
Tellingly, the Narendra Modi government earlier this month permitted the India-based Tibetan government in exile to perform rituals on the eve of the Dalai Lama’s birthday on the shores of Ladakh’s famous Pangong Lake along the disputed boundary with China, a significant move in the middle of a faceoff with Beijing in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan trijunction.
According to the Economic Times of India, the Modi government allowed Lobsang Sangay, the “Sikyong” (president) of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, to travel to Ladakh on July 5 to perform rituals on the shores of the Pang Gong Lake, located on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Earlier in April, New Delhi had facilitated a visit by the Dalai Lama to Tawang near LAC in Arunachal — a move that drew sharp criticism in Beijing and considered by experts as one of the key reasons behind China’s assertion in the Indo-Bhutan-China trijunction along Sikkim.
The area witnessed a conflict between soldiers of India and China during the 1962 war. It still remains a sensitive point along LAC. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army personnel on boats often cross the LAC and intrude into territory claimed by India, the Economic Times said.
It may be pointed out that China considers Dalai Lama a political exile, “who has long been engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion with the attempt to split Tibet from China.”
Last year Mongolia’s decision to welcome the Dalai Lama in Ulan Bator resulted in Beijing’s decision to impose stringent trade restrictions on its unequal neighbor.
Earlier this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Mongolia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Tsend Munkh-Orgil by telephone that the Tibetan leader’s “furtive visit to Mongolia brought a negative impact to China-Mongolia relations.” He added: “We hope that Mongolia has taken this lesson to heart.”
“From Doklam to Taiwan, China shows zero tolerance to sovereignty threats”
Amid India-China border standoff, a leading Indian newspaper, The Hindu, said Wednesday: China’s insistence on the withdrawal of Indian troops from the Doklam plateau as a precondition for negotiations is consistent with its position on Tibet, Taiwan or the South China Sea — areas of hyper-sensitivity, where Beijing perceives that its “territorial sovereignty” is at stake.
Writing under the title - From Doklam to Taiwan, China shows zero tolerance to ‘sovereignty’ threats - Atul Aneja of The Hindu said, Indonesia’s cartographic dalliance by renaming a portion of the South China Sea (NCS) as North Natuna Sea has also drawn Beijing’s ire and China has raised the red flag on Jakarta’s decision to issue a new official map. The map apparently intersects a part of the Nine-Dash line, which defines China’s maritime boundary in the SCS, thus rejecting Beijing’s “sovereignty” in the entire area.
The paper went on to say that China has slammed the United States on Monday, following the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 in the US House of Congress, which asks the US Defense Secretary to look into the feasibility of re-establishing port calls between the US and Taiwanese navies.
As expected, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said in response to a question related to Washington’s move: “Relevant contents go against the one-China policy of the US and the principles of the three joint communiqués between China and the US and interfere in China’s domestic affairs. China has lodged stern representations with the US side.”
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
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