China’s Planning on Border Infrastructure

Abstract

Rapid development of infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, as well as within the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) plays a decisive role in the strategic calculus of India. Despite numerous rounds of talks between India and China under the Special Representative(SR) mechanism, little concrete progress has been achieved in the direction of settlement of the boundaries. However, in terms of confidence building mechanisms much has been achieved including the 1996 CBM which promises peace along the border between these two important Asian neighbours. Unfriendly incidents like face-offs between the border forces and armies, allegations of border intrusions, and gradual build up of military on both sides of the border region suggest that the possibility of military confrontation is still alive between these two close neighbours. However, given the institutional frameworks which have been built overtime, the military confrontation has been avoided. Reports of China’s rapid infrastructure development in TAR in general and its border regions contiguous to South Asia in particular, compel a country like India try to understand China’s objectives for doing so. The more recent standoffs in Depsang in 2015 and subsequently at Doklam in 2017 are testimony to China’s increasing confidence in dealing with the border issues through show of power and deployment of armed personnel on ground. This article takes an objective assessment of the infrastructure that China has developed in the Tibet region and how it is meant to give strategic advantage to China.