NEW DELHI – Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday has expressedhis fears over the military might of China, saying “Chinese have finallyarrived”. During a media interaction, the Army chief pointed that Chinaensured rise of its military power along with its economic prowess, Indianmedia has reported.

“Chinese have finally arrived. I can say that. They did not forget thatmilitary power should rise simultaneously with economy,” said GeneralRawat. He further acknowledged that China stands “strong today in the worldorder, challenging the might of the US”.

According to the Army chief, counties across the world have started lookingup to India after the rise of China. He said, “As China has risen,countries have started looking up to India to see whether we can alsobecome a nation that can balance the rise of China.”

It was because of China’s assertiveness that the focus of the internationalcommunity shifted towards the Indo-Pacific region, said General Rawat.

This comes days after the Army chief blamed Pakistan and China for influxof illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. He had said that it is part of aproxy warfare by Pakistan, which is getting support from China with an aimto keep the area disturbed.

“I think the proxy game is very well played by our western neighbour,supported by our northern border (China) to keep the area disturbed. Wewill continue to see some migration happening. The solution lies inidentifying the problem and holistically looking at it,” he had said.

India and China recently ended about a 70-day long military standoff at theDoklam tri-junction near the Sikkim border which had strained bilateralties.

In another reference to China, Rawat had said in August 2017 that China wasattempting to ‘change the status quo’ on its border with India andincidents like stand-off in the Doklam area were likely to ‘increase’ infuture.

“The recent stand-off in the Doklam plateau by the Chinese side attemptingto change the status quo are issues which we need to be wary about, and Ithink such kind of incidents are likely to increase in the future,” he hadsaid.