'As the PLA higher command is almost dismantled and instability spreads, India needs to be prepared for any eventuality,' cautions China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
The request was made soon after the balloon was shot down on Saturday off the coast of South Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean.
A Chinese fighter jet performed an unsafe manoeuvre after it came as close as 20 feet within a United States military aircraft over the South China sea, The Hill reported on Thursday citing the US Indo-Pacific Command.
A Chinese media report said Wei and Singh are attending the event in Moscow and they are likely to meet there over the border tension in eastern Ladakh. "Our Defence Minister would not be meeting the Chinese Defence Minister," Defence Ministry Spokesperson Bharat Bhushan Babu said when asked about the Chinese media report.
It will be a historic and strategic mistake to insist on taking China as a threat and adversary, or even an enemy, Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fengh said on Sunday as he underlined that the China-United States relationship is at a critical and crucial juncture.
During the monsoon session, which began on Monday, the Opposition is seeking to corner the government on its handling of the standoff with China along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, the COVID-19 situation, economic downturn and unemployment, and is pressing for discussions on these issues.
China said it has suspended the project due to security concerns from a third party.
Any miscalculation and miscommunication are fraught with the risk of a major catastrophe, warns Rup Narayan Das.
China has 'violated the sovereignty' of not just the United States but of countries across five continents, Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleged Wednesday, days after US fighter jets shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon.
It will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after the border row escalated in eastern Ladakh in early May.
Besides attending the SCO defence ministers' meeting, Singh will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu and several other top military officials with an aim to expedite the implementation of several defence procurement programmes, they said.
The Chinese have been making inroads in Sri Lanka where they recently got a reclaimed port city near Colombo. Prior to that, they gained control over the Hambantota port which was built by them.
His trip to Moscow comes days after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the Russian capital to attend a meeting of the defence ministers of the eight-nation SCO of which both India and China are members.
Lieutenant General Wei Fenghe's, China's new defence minister's, first guest of honour could be his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman.
According to official sources, the primary objective of Wei's visit is to deliberate with Indian defence establishment on implementation of decisions taken by Modi and Xi in their informal summit in Wuhan in April.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi met in Moscow on Thursday amid hopes of a possible breakthrough in reducing tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
It is the first highest level face-to-face meeting between the two sides after the border row escalated in eastern Ladakh in early May.
Wu said both the countries are also in consultations to work on a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the defence ministries.
China is ready to take "conciliatory steps" in order to avoid new violations of the obligations on the India-Chinese border, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday, a day after holding a crucial meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar over the current standoff in Ladakh. Speaking during a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Wang said troops and equipment should be withdrawn from the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Sitharaman, who is in Russia on a three-day visit, also met her Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the international security conference.
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The exercise 'Hand-in-Hand' between the armies of the two countries will take place within next 4-5 months in China.
In a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan gave a brief account of the four-month-long standoff and said the Chinese side attempted to transgress the Line of Actual in several areas of the western sector since mid-May.
We can expect to see more Chinese wolf warrior diplomats on the prowl, in India's neighbourhood, though its mailed fist is not so visible while dealing with India, observes Colonel R Hariharan (retd).
'A hotline between the Chinese and Indian military establishments is essential if the possibility of conflict is to be minimised.' 'When relations are uneasy, even minor incidents can spiral out of control,' warns former senior RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
The sources said the Indian Army has been on a very high level of alert and is ready to deal with any eventuality in the area.
The meeting is taking place under the shadow of a fierce border row between India and China, both members of the influential bloc.
'China's military is expected to deploy full throttle its new equipment including J-20 stealth fighters, drones, medium range missile systems, surveillance and others to continue to put psychological pressure on India,' warns Srikanth Kondapalli, Professor in Chinese Studies, JNU.
'The world is finally recognising that China is pushing a form of government that many only now are beginning to recognise as problematic'
India has realised that one can only deal with China from a position of strength and that is not palatable to Beijing, observes Dr Rup Narayan Das.
In his address at a ministerial meeting of the SCO in Moscow in the Russian capital, Singh also referred to the Second World War and said its memories teach the globe the 'follies of aggression' of one state upon another that brings 'destruction' to all.
Singh, who arrived in Moscow on a three-day visit on Tuesday at the invitation of the Russian Ministry of Defence to attend the 75th Anniversary of Victory Day Parade, said his visit to Moscow is the first foreign visit from India of an official delegation after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sources said the situation in eastern Ladakh remained 'tense' and that around 30-40 soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) are holding up at a position close to an Indian post in the Rezang-La ridgeline in eastern Ladakh.
The use of firearms along the LAC marks a serious escalation in border tensions as the previous instance of shots being fired at the de-facto border was in 1975.
In a veiled reference to China's aggressive military behaviour, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said exercising self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoiding actions that may further complicate situation will go a long way in bringing sustained regional peace.
The two sides also decided on early operationalisation of the proposed hotline between the two armies as part of the confidence building measures, the defence ministry said.
Did Xi deliver a message to Modi at Mamallapuram, which though couched in a velvet glove was time-bound? What was that message? It is clear Indian/Israeli/US spy satellites would not have missed detecting Chinese troop movements towards the Ladakh-Tibet frontier. Then why did some important functionaries in the Government of India choose to only ask the Russians about this in April 2020? Was Russian reassurance of Chinese troop movements being part of a routine exercise the reason that the Leh-based XIV Corps did not mobilise itself for its annual summer exercises near the LAC? A fascinating excerpt from Iqbal Chand Malhotra's new book Red Fear: The China Threat.
However, there will be no bilateral meetings between Swaraj, Sitharaman with their Pakistani counterparts.
In the first highest level face-to-face contact between the two sides after border tension erupted in eastern Ladakh in early May, Singh and Wei met for two hours and 20 minutes in Moscow on Friday evening on the sidelines of a meeting of the defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Three Chinese astronauts on Thursday entered the country's new space station after their spaceship successfully docked with it, just over seven hours after the launch from the Gobi Desert, in a major milestone for the Communist giant's space exploration plans and its bid to become a leading space power.
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