Acutely conscious of the fate of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Chinese President Xi Jinping is particularly concerned that the army remains “an army of the party” and to ensure this, he mandated a series of consecutive year-long education campaigns to instil the CCP’s ideology and correct political orientation among the soldiers. A book released last week, titled “Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Army Q&A”, has now indelibly affixed his imprimatur on the PLA. It has been distributed throughout the army as “important” reading for officers, soldiers, cadres and the masses.

Xi’s grip on the PLA is near absolute. At an “enlarged” meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) within two days of taking over China’s top three posts, including Chairman of the CMC in November 2012, Xi announced that the political reliability and loyalty would trump all other considerations and be the sole determining criterion for promotions in the PLA. Other steps were taken to ensure the PLA’s “absolute obedience” to the CCP and CMC Chairman. The CCP’s anti-graft outfit, the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC), weeded out corrupt officers and those of doubtful loyalty and by September 2017 had dismissed over 4,885 officers, including 150 Generals. Each General in the PLA today has been appointed by Xi, who has also donned the operational role of the Commander-in-Chief.

With the PLA maintaining the number of delegates to the upcoming 20th Party Congress at 304, despite its downsizing by 3,00,000 personnel, it appears that the PLA’s representation in the new 20th CCP Central Committee (CC) will probably stay at 37 full members and 22 alternate members as in the outgoing 19th CCP CC. Its representation in the Politburo is similarly unlikely to be reduced. The PLA’s presence in the Party Congress would give Xi added leverage in the CCP CC.

Relevant to India is the attention being paid by Xi to the PLA Western Theatre Command (WTC). The largest of China’s five theatre commands, it exercises operational jurisdiction over China’s borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Myanmar. Its tasks include protection of Chinese personnel and assets deployed on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Western Theatre Command was operationally responsible for the intrusions in the Ladakh region in April 2020 that activated the entire 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In this backdrop of continuing tension and deployment of 60,000-70,000 troops each by India and China in the high-altitude eastern Ladakh, what is interesting is that the number of delegates representing the PLA WTC at the 20th Party Congress is nearly double than that of the other four theatre commands. The WTC has selected 30 delegates for the 20th Party Congress. There are other signs of the leadership’s attention to the WTC.

The Chinese President visited Lhasa on July 23, 2021, Chengdu on July 9, 2022, and Urumqi on July 15, 2022, where he met WTC officers. The WTC receives advanced military hardware and latest jet aircraft ahead of all other theatre commands, except the Eastern Theatre Command.

Massive infrastructure projects sanctioned by the 14th Five-Year Plan are scheduled for completion by 2030-35. These will upgrade the WTC’s military capabilities and include new railways, a new highway and 30 additional airfields in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and its surrounding areas.

Coincidentally, the timeline matches that in the article published in June 2013 by Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po, projecting China’s war with India for the “reconquest of the southern Tibet” between 2035 and 2040.

Furthermore, there is little sign of abatement of the considerable widespread discontent inside China, further inflamed by the “zero Covid” policy and unending lockdowns.

A PLA Daily editorial had earlier warned that the United States could “use the tense domestic situation in China to fan the social upheaval and provoke social conflict.”

“Colour revolutions” is a serious worry for the Chinese leadership. Significant for China’s neighbours and India is the fresh warning issued just weeks before the 20th Party Congress via a commentator’s article, which conveys the views of the CCP CC.

This commentator’s article in the People’s Daily last week stated that the world has become increasingly turbulent and more prone to change. In an unusually candid admission, it said the “country’s security situation has become increasingly unstable and uncertain.” It disclosed the CCP leadership’s concern at the increasingly “prominent issues” related to maritime disputes and the “increased likelihood of chaos on our doorstep”, thus making the task of “defending the country’s political security and social stability more formidable.”

The latest warning clearly implies that Xi is facing a difficult period and will be on the edge. The CCP cadres, public security apparatus and the PLA, including the WTC, are certainly on high alert. In case the situation doesn’t improve, or deteriorates, and the CCP’s authority and legitimacy are perceived as beginning to erode, Xi will be tempted to divert attention and resort to military actions abroad. The developments in Ukraine will be a factor in his calculations. In this backdrop, any expectation, prompted by disingenuous Chinese media comments or the disengagement at Gogra-Hot Springs, that Xi will change his attitude or policy towards India is unfounded and premature.

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The G695 national expressway will be only the second national highway through the disputed Aksai Chin region, where China controls 38,000 sq km of land claimed by India, since the controversial construction of the G219 highway in the 1950s, and is expected to be completed by 2035.

The new highway, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, will run even closer to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) than G219 and is likely to broadly run along the course of G219 from Mazha in Xinjiang in the north, through Aksai Chin, which is currently administered under the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, heading south along the borders with India, Nepal and Bhutan, and down to Lhunze in southeastern Tibet right across the border from Arunachal Pradesh.

While a map of the proposed highway has not been released, the route described by the report will mean the highway will likely cut across Aksai Chin. Its course will bring it close to several disputed areas that have seen recent tensions, the Post reported, from Eastern Ladakh down to near Doklam close to the India-China-Bhutan trijunction. “Details of the new construction remain unclear, but the highway, when completed, may also go near hotly contested areas such as the Depsang Plains, Galwan Valley and Hot Springs on the LAC,” the report said.

The plan for G695 follows long-held discussions to build another border highway to supplement G219 and act as another key artery that could help China mobilise resources rapidly towards border areas. China has also stepped up the construction of secondary highways at the provincial level that will connect the national highways to remote border areas.

This week, Beijing unveiled a new national road network plan that aims to build 4,61,000 km of roads — including 1,62,000 km of national expressways and 2,99,000 km of provincial highways — by 2035. Under the plan, the official China News Service reported, all cities with a 1 lakh population will be connected to a national highway in 30 minutes.

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This is one of the outcomes of a multi-year collaborative historical research project published recently. The findings of the project were presented at the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China on 23 June.

“China’s pre-1949 official historical records clearly show that, before the PRC invaded Tibet in 1950, Tibet was never part of China. Sadly, today many governments incorrectly believe this ridiculous lie, and this is part of the reason why many western democracies fail to provide adequate support for upholding Tibet’s sovereignty,” said Hon-Shiang Lau, Retired Chair Professor, City University of Hong Kong, in his testimony before the Commission.

He also presented maps from the Ming and Qing dynasties to prove that Tibet was never part of a Chinese empire and that, therefore, the PRC’s claims to unify China by annexing Tibet are baseless.

He mentioned that there are two important foundation concepts behind this theme, which are –

Foundation A: “There is an abundance of authentic and reliable pre-1949 Chinese official historical records. The PRC-version of “Chinese history” is very different from the version of “Chinese history” reflected in these pre-1949 official Chinese records, and Foundation B: “we use a comprehensive range of objective criteria to examine whether Tibet was part of China. Thus, to judge whether Tibet was part of China during China’s Ming dynasty, we use official classical Chinese records to examine”.

Another witness, Michael van Walt van Praag, Professor of International Law and Executive Chairman of Kreddha, stated clearly that Tibet was not historically part of China and denied their claim to Tibet from ancient times.

The professor also accused the international community, including the US, of falling in line with China’s historical narrative that Tibet has always been part of China.

The Professor said, “Contrary to what the People’s Republic of China claims and to what many people take for granted, Tibet was historically not a part of China. This is one of the outcomes of a multiyear collaborative historical research project that I recently completed and published.”

“This is relevant and requires our attention because the PRC government has made an agreement on its version of history a precondition to Sino-Tibetan negotiations, which have been in deadlock now for 12 years. More fundamentally, the PRC bases its entitlement to Tibet solely on its assertion that Tibet has been an integral part of China since antiquity. Whether or not Tibet was historically a part of China, therefore, determines whether the PRC has the legitimacy to rule Tibet or not. And that, in turn, informs the international community’s obligations and responsibilities regarding the Sino-Tibetan conflict,” he added.

Professor Praag furthered that the international community was wrong in believing that the Sino-Tibetan conflict is an internal affair, as China illegally invaded Tibet in 1950, according to International Law.

Tenzin Tethong, Former Tibetan government official and Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to North America, testified regarding the challenges faced by the Tibetan Central Administration and His Holiness the Dalai Lama in maintaining contact with the Chinese government.

Ellen Bork, Contributing Editor, American Purpose, highlighted the use of propaganda by the Chinese government and their use of state-owned media to popularize a false narrative about Tibet and its intentions.

Ellen Bork added, “More than 70 years after the invasion, Tibet remains a high priority, for the Chinese Communist Party. This priority is evident in the attention and resources the Party devotes to surveillance, repression, and control, to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s goal of Sinicizing religion, the exploitation of natural resources, and building up military forces along Tibet’s border with India.” (ANI)

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Several stretches of the lengthy frontier are disputed and relations have soured dramatically since 20 Indian soldiers died in a brawl in June 2020 on one section between Ladakh and Tibet.

Since then, both sides have reinforced the region with thousands of extra soldiers and military hardware as multiple rounds of talks have failed to de-escalate tensions.

This week, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said it had “standardised” the names of 15 places in Zangnan (“South Tibet”) – Beijing’s title for the region India calls Arunachal Pradesh – and gave them all formal Chinese names.

The renaming of residential areas, rivers and mountains followed a similar move in 2017 involving six other locations in the same area.

“Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be an integral part of India,” India’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday (Dec 30).

“Assigning invented names to places in Arunachal Pradesh does not alter this fact,” spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “Southern Tibet is in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and has historically been Chinese territory,” adding the renaming came within “the scope of China’s sovereignty”.

Tibet has alternated over the centuries between independence and control by China, which says it “peacefully liberated” the rugged plateau in 1951.

It fiercely defends and militarises the Tibetan border and brushes aside any debate about Chinese historical ownership of the region.

India meanwhile sees China’s new Land Borders Law, approved in October and set to come into force on Jan 1, as a hardening of Beijing’s position.

The law calls China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity “sacred and inviolable” and enables Beijing to “take measures to safeguard territorial integrity and land boundaries and guard against and combat any act that undermines territorial sovereignty and land boundaries”.

India said in October that it expected that “China will avoid undertaking action under the pretext of this law which could unilaterally alter the situation in the India-China border areas”.

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The timing of the announcement can be linked to the ongoing border tensions, which is rooted in China’s refusal to acknowledge the McMahon Line. Instead, Beijing claims 90,000 square kilometres in India’s Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet (Nan Zang).
China’s aggression has been increasing in the Ladakh and Sikkim sectors. Now, the building of a dam so close to LAC in Arunachal Pradesh also underlines China’s strategic intent: To question India’s territorial integrity.

Last month, Global Times, the government’s mouthpiece, reported that the proposed dam would be constructed in Metok (Medog), the last county of TAR. According to the plan, the dam will be constructed 30 kilometres from the Indian border. The decision follows announcements made in the 14th Five Year Plan, which sets the government’s agenda till 2025. The plan states that China will “implement hydropower development in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River”. This dam is one of the three dams that have been proposed for the region.

According to Jiandao, which comprises media professionals, analysts and technical experts: “The Motok hydropower station will use the 50 km straight section of the river bend to build a giant tunnel to divert water, and then lay out 6 large hydropower stations each with an installed capacity of 10 million kilowatts. There is a 400-meter drop between each power station, with a total drop of up to 2,400 meters”.

Bigger Than Three Gorges Dam

The new dam’s ability to generate hydropower could be three times that of the Three Gorges Dam, which has the largest installed hydropower capacity in the world. Yan Zhiyong, chairman of PowerChina, said recently that the dam could provide 300 billion kWh of zero-carbon electricity annually.

India, the lower riparian country, has every reason to be alarmed.

The Brahmaputra is an important river for the country. In the past, many incidents over the river inside the Indian boundary have been attributed to China’s designs against India. These include the increase in turbidity and blackening of waters in Siang, temporary stoppage of data sharing by China over the high season flows as per the China-India memorandum of understanding during the Doklam standoff (2017), and news of a series of check dams being constructed along the Tibetan boundary.

Experts have also warned India about China’s designs.

ALSO READ: INDIA-PAKISTAN: China to Construct Dam on Indus River in POK

“For India, the one domain in which China’s status as the ‘upper riparian’ provides an almost insurmountable challenge is in ensuring shared access to transboundary rivers. And as the recent clashes on the Sino-Indian border have made clear, India needs to assess how China might “weaponise” its advantage over those countries downstream. Control over these rivers effectively gives China a chokehold on India’s economy,” a Lowy Institute report said in July.

In “Water Wars: The Brahmaputra River and Sino Indian Relations,” Mark Christopher warns: “China’s commitment to construct ever-larger upriver dams reflects a zero-sum mentality on water use that has the potential to bring it directly into conflict with India. Further downstream, the actions of both countries affect Bangladesh”. The management of the river is critical because it touches on a host of crucial and complicated issues, including territorial integrity, food security, international law, the intersection of domestic and foreign policy, and the asymmetric power of neighbouring states with huge populations and great aspirations.

The super hydropower station is being planned with one aim: To equip China with strategic leverage over India. Such huge water storage capacity could be used as a tool for consolidating supremacy in the disputed territories. India should be aware that the Yarlung Zangbo-Brahmaputra dam issue is not just about resource management; China is using Tibet’s waters to further its territorial ambitions.

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Chinese media has been showing, since 23 May, images of the 134th Combinerd-Arms Mechanised Airborne Brigade moving to Tibet. This brigade had suffered 4,000 casualties in just ten days of fighting as part of 45th Infantry Division 15th Army during Battle of Triangle Hill, or Battle of Shangganling in the Korea War.   

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