Amid Sikkim standoff, China holds advance military exercise near Arunachal Pradesh

Beijing: As Sikkim standoff between India and China continues to intensify with every passing day, Chinese military on Monday held live-fire drills in the Tibet area close to the Arunachal Pradesh border, a state-run Chinese media reported.

The military exercise, held by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), did quick movement troops drill and also practiced destroying enemy aircrafts with artillery and tankers, a Hindustan Times report said, quoting China Central Television (CCTV) report.

The state-run media fail to mention the reason for the drill at the border area of India as this is the latest in the series of war threats by the Chinese side post the border dispute between India and China over tri-junction Dokalam area.

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“The brigade that conducted the (latest) drills was from the PLA’s Tibet military command and is one of China’s two plateau mountain brigades,” the national broadcaster of China, CCTV, said.

The CCTV reported that the military drill was organised in the Tibet Autonomous Region in the middle and lower reaches of Yarlung Zangbo River, ‘located in the upper stream of the Brahmaputra River which flows through China, India and Bangladesh’.

The Chinese river Yarlung Zangbo which enters India through Arunachal, where it is called Siang before it becomes the Brahmaputra in Assam. China has been building dams over it, causing concern in India that it could affect the flow of the Brahmaputra.

The Chinese media report also stated that the troops from various military units joined the exercise which involved use of anti-tank grenades and missiles.

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“There has been video recorded by another state-run Chinese tabloid Global Times, which shows radar units identifying enemy aircraft and soldiers using anti-aircraft artillery to annihilate targets,” the Hindustan Times report said.

This could be believed as an indirect message to the Indian government and its military as China has been blaming India for the standoff and has asked India to withdraw its troops from Sikkim border for peaceful diplomatic talks between two countries.

Moreover, China has also been claiming that large parts of Arunachal, India’s easternmost state, as their territory called as southern Tibet.