BEIJING – India’s military was merely bluffing and not as strong as itclaims, expert said, after senior Indian military officers made harshremarks toward China.
The Indian Army has been “very well prepared” and China is unlikely to tryany “misadventures anymore,” Abhay Krishna, Indian General OfficerCommanding-in-Chief, Eastern Army Command of the Indian Army, said onIndia’s Army Day.
The statement was made in response to a question on the preparedness of theIndian Army after the Doklam standoff in June 2017.
It was made only two days after Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat told a pressconference that China was exerting pressure on India along the border, butclaimed that the Indian Army was fully capable of dealing with any securitychallenge on the northern frontier.
The unconstructive remarks made by the senior Indian officer not only wentagainst the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries but alsowork against bilateral efforts to safeguard peace and tranquility in theborder areas, according to a statement by Chinese Foreign Ministryspokesperson Lu Kang.
India will buy more than 160,000 guns worth $553 million for troops on itsdisputed, high-altitude borders.“Apparently India was grandstanding to make it appear powerful toneighboring countries in South Asia. However, their military is not asstrong as stated,” said Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute ofInternational Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
“The military officials’ remarks do not represent the Indian government’sattitude, while the Indian government’s response, which has yet to beheard, is a litmus test of India’s sincerity to improve bilateral relationswith China,” Qian Feng, a researcher at the Chinese Association for SouthAsian Studies, told the Global Times.
Qian said more border disputes are highly possible, and both sides shoulddeal with such crises through the border management mechanism to avoidincidents like the Doklam standoff.
Sino-Indian relations have reached a turning point that either the twocountries find an acceptable position for their ties and a mechanism tocoordinate, or their relations will be a burden to the two rising powers,Zhang Jiadong, a professor at Fudan University’s Center for AmericanStudies, wrote in an article published on news site thepaper.cn.
Indian soldiers trespassed into Chinese territory in Doklam and stayed formore than 70 days in June last year, sending Sino-Indian ties to a historiclow.