Despite increased political and economic relationship between India andChina, the Pentagon in a report to the US Congress said, tensionsremain along the Sino-India borders with rising instances of borderviolation and aggressive border patrolling by Chinese soldier.
However, a senior Defense Departmentofficial told reporters that the UShas not observed any anomalous increase in military capabilities alongthe Sino-India border.
Noting that China continues to maintain its position on what itsterritorial claim is, the official said, the two capitals - Beijing andNew Delhi - have been able to manage this dispute, in a way, usingconfidence-building measures and diplomatic mechanisms to be able tomaintain relative stability in that border area.
"But it's something that China continues to watch; but I wouldn't saythat there's anything in this report that demonstrates a spike or ananomalous increase in military capabilities along the border.
"It's something that China's paying very careful attention to. It'sobviously something that India is paying careful attention to as well,"the Senior Defense Department official said.
In its annual report, the US Defence department said, to improveregional deterrence, the PLA has replaced older liquid-fueled, nuclearcapable CCS-3 intermediate range missiles with more advanced andsurvivable fueled CSS-5 MRBMs.
"China is currently engaged in massive road and rail infrastructuredevelopment along the Sino-India border primarily to facilitateeconomic development in western China: improved roads also support PLAoperations," the Pentagon said.
The report presented to the Congress said despite increased politicaland economic relations over the years between China and India, tensionsremain along their shared 4,057 km border, most notably over ArunachalPradesh, which China asserts as part of Tibet and therefore of China,and over the Aksai Chin region at the western end of the TibetanPlateau.
"Both countries, in 2009, stepped up efforts to assert their claims.China tried to block a USD 2.9 billion loan to India from the AsianDevelopment Bank, claiming part of the loan would have been used forwater projects in Arunachal Pradesh. This represented the first timeChina sought to influence this dispute through a multilateralinstitution," the Pentagon said.
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