Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat in an undated file photo.
File photo/PTI
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NEW DELHI, India, 14 December 2020
Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Monday said that given India is engaged in a standoff situation in Ladakh, there is some development activity which has been ongoing in Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Every nation will continue to prepare for ensuring its security based on their strategic interest, he said.
General Rawat assured that India is fully prepared for any eventuality that we may be faced with.
On being asked about continuous ceasefire violation by Pakistan, he said that “the other side should be getting more concerned. We are fully prepared.”
“Time has come now to look at the future of warfighting imbibing technology into our systems. We have got adequate forces to counter any threat or challenges that we may face on northern borders,” the Chief of Defence Staff General said.
They forced PLA to go back: Rajnath Singh lauds India’s armed forces
Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, while addressing the 93rd annual general meeting of FICCI, also lauded the Indian armed forces and said that they ‘forced’ Chinese ‘People’s Liberation Army to go back’ from the Line of Actual Control (LAC). He indirectly blamed China for violating established agreements and pushing power ‘not just in Himalayas’, but across the ‘Indo-Pacific’.
“As you are aware, there is a big build-up of Armed Forces at the LAC in Ladakh. In these testing times, our forces have shown exemplary courage and remarkable fortitude. They fought the PLA with utmost bravery and forced them to go back,” Singh said.
“The coming generations of this nation will be proud of what our forces have managed to achieve this year. Whenever there is a situation at the LAC, the most obvious outcome is a comparison between India and China’s military strength,” he said.
Never before did the Indo-Tibet border witness such dangerous face-offs since the Tibetan and Indian civilisations came into existence. It was one of the world’s most peaceful borders. However, since communist China illegally occupied Tibet in the 50s, war broke out between India and China soon after in 1962.
China has a history of expansion and it continues to this day. From a tiny principality in its early days, it was the invaders like the Mongols and Manchus that actually extended their empire. The Chinese regarded them as foreign invaders but more than happy to share the spoils of the invaders.
India is now facing a situation just like Israel in being surrounded by hostile neighbours. It just can’t hope this will go away or their enemies will somehow become benign neighbours like Bhutan.
The only way is take a DRASTIC step in changing its foreign policy to create a buffer between China and India which did exist until 1951. The nexus between China and Pakistan is creating a dangerous dichotomy. Pakistan is driven by its dream of seizing Kashmir while China not only supports this goal, it has its own agenda of slicing up India.
It is openly supporting insurgents in the North East while at the same time it has ambition of seizing the whole of Indian Himalayan region by hook or crook. The constant incursion from China and firing from Pakistan is to destabilise and also run down India through a war of attrition.
Indian leaders have lived in their ivory tower of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai sloganeering not knowing how they were taken for a ride by the Chinese. They have for far too long hoped against hope that communist China will come back to its senses and be a good neighbour. It has only gotten worse and will likely continue.