Source:-China is helping Pakistan build bunkers along Gujarat, Rajasthan border. But why?
China is helping Pakistan build strong permanent bunkers along the border with Gujarat and Rajasthan, pictures exclusively accessed by Aaj Tak reveal, in fresh evidence of the two troublesome neighbours joining forces to nettle India.
The Pakistani side has set up more than 350 such dugouts with Chinese help. The structures are difficult to locate as the stones used for the construction are inconspicuous.
Sources say defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already visited key areas thrice to assess the security preparedness since getting intelligence reports on the matter.
Pakistan has also purportedly undertaken construction of defence canals, swamps and road infrastructure. China and Pakistan consider each other “all-weather friends” and have close diplomatic, economic and security ties. Officials point out that there has been a significant rise in the number of Chinese soldiers close to the Indian border with Pakistan.
WHAT ARE THE CHINESE UP TO?
The Chinese have also been building airports adjacent to India: two have come up in the last four months while work on two more is underway. An airbase is already complete about 25km away from the Ghotaru border in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district. The Chinese have been building another airport in Tharparkar, close to Rajasthan’s Barmer.
This base too is about 25km from the Indian border.
India has often raised concerns over China’s growing presence in the region, fearing strategic encirclement by a “string of pearls” around the Indian Ocean and on land as China builds ports, railways and power stations in countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Chinese soldiers have been building an airport close to Gujarat as well, in the Mithi region, 20km from India.
Plans are afoot to lay railway tracks for a China-Pakistan corridor. According to sources, during a flag meeting with India, Pakistan claimed that the airports will be used by oil and gas companies of China as earlier they used to find it difficult to arrive at the location. New Delhi has been sceptical of Beijing’s One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR) – an audacious network of land and sea routes that seeks to connect Asia, Europe, Africa and West Asia in a modern, magnified version of the Silk Route.
Part of the corridor runs through Gilgit-Baltistan, territory that India sees as sovereign and illegally occupied, all the way to the Gwadar deep-sea port in Pakistan. New Delhi denounced the project and boycotted a huge conclave in May in Beijing that was attended by 60 countries that have signed up to the Belt-and-Road project.
According to intelligence inputs, several Chinese soldiers have also been seen in Peerkamal and Cholistan, close to Jaislamer. Security agencies are perplexed at the prospect of the relatively quiet desert area being turned into a strategic location by China.
There are also reports that Chinese soldiers are trying to upgrade airbases such as the ones in Pakistan’s Karachi, Jacobabad, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Sargoda and Peshawar. Relations between China and India nosedived this year during a dispute over a three-way junction between Bhutan, China’s Tibet and India’s Sikkim, which was resolved with both sides standing down in August.
Source:-India Today
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