To rise quickly in the PLA's hierarchy, you need to be close to Xi Jinping. Retired RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade on the changes in China's military leadership.
India needs to be alert on how the Doklam standoff plays into the factional infighting in China's Communist Party, says Ambassador Shyam Saran, the former foreign secretary.
The talks took place in a beach resort in Benaulim on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
The president said China would never allow "any people, organisation or political party to split any part of Chinese territory out of the country at any time, in any form."
'The military officers at China's National People's Congress reflect Xi Jinping's preference for elevating politically reliable, younger, officers with good professional qualifications,' says former RAW officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
The removal of the term limit will give Xi a limitless tenure.
Confronting a slowdown in growth, China says it will only increase its defence budget by 7.6% this year, against the anticipated rise of between 20% and 30%. 'It is difficult to explain the reduction in the Chinese defence budget,' says Claude Arpi. 'Is there a hidden budget? Possibly!'
'The first time that China alleged the Dalai Lama was 'anti-national' and 'unpatriotic' was after he affirmed that Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang are part of India,' points out former RA&W official Jayadeva Ranade.
In democratic India, a citizen can be a patriot and at the same time be critical of the government, unlike China which promulgated a national security law in Hong Kong prescribing patriotism to contest elections, observes Rup Narayan Das.
'Tibetans will participate in future conflicts with India (in all probability, some were already present in Galwan).' 'As nobody in India would like to have a deadly fight with Tibetan soldiers and officers, the issue needs to be closely followed,' observes Claude Arpi.
China's parliament on Thursday adopted the 14th Five-Year Plan, the mega blueprint containing billions of dollars worth of projects, including the controversial hydropower project on the Brahmaputra river in Tibet close to the Arunachal Pradesh border over which India has raised concerns.
Zhou Yongkang, one of China's top leaders in the previous Hu Jintao's regime, has been charged with trading power for sex, adultery and leaking state secrets.
Chinese foreign policy will acquire a more ideological and less pragmatic character. It will be conducted with more nationalist overtones, predicts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
China's National Health Commission on Thursday said the country reported only four new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, taking the total number to 82,862, while no death due to the disease was registered. The virus has claimed 4,633 lives in the country.
The Fujian was launched at a brief ceremony held at the Shanghai shipyard, the official media reported from the eastern metropolis.
'Does it mean that we are witnessing the end of an era?' 'Probably not, but the post-Trump trade war has certainly brought a lot of instability in China,' notes Claude Arpi.
'Xi's assumption of absolute power is neither complete, nor irreversible.' 'Nor is it safe, for Xi, for his party, or for his country more generally.' 'And the government knows this,' says Mihir S Sharma.
The seventh Tibet Work Forum was held in Beijing on August 28 and 29. Delhi should be deeply concerned, at a time India faces a precarious situation in Ladakh, because the TWF also defines China's western border policies, observes Claude Arpi.
Xi said the entire military should devote all its energy to carry out all its work for combat readiness, enhance its capability to fight and win, and effectively fulfill its missions and tasks
Disgraced Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai sprang a surprise on the first day of his high profile trial on Thursday by defiantly going back on his earlier testimony, calling a witness a "mad dog" and describing his wife's evidence against him as "laughable".
Chinese observers believe the Sino-US relationship will be impacted by issues in North Korea, Japan, India, Ukraine and Iran and that conflicts with these 'third parties' will without exception ultimately become conflicts between China and the US, points out former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
The readouts by the Indian and Chinese sides on the meeting on Monday between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow bring out that divergences are crowding into the centrestage of their relationship, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
After the Ladakh fiasco where Xi Jinping did not expect the Indian Army to resist his land-grabbing tactics, he has to save face before his colleagues in the Communist party.' To bring the threat of a mega-dam to the northern Indian border is a clever move, observes Claude Arpi.
The US is the worst-hit nation with 211,793 deaths and 7,549,429 infections.
The chairman of the organising committee Karma Gelek Yuthok said almost 7,000 pilgrims had returned to China, citing pressure from authorities there, the Global Times report said.
Why is China's supreme leader promoting Han Chauvinism so aggressively, asks Claude Arpi.
Much to the surprise of Beijing, Nepal's Parliament on Sunday ratified the contentious US-funded $500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation compact along with an interpretive declaration a day ahead of the February 28 deadline set by Washington.
'That the two sides allowed such a situation to arise exposed the level of inaction and inefficiency in China-India border management.' 'The Modi-Xi meeting in Xiamen initiated a process to to avert such contingencies in the future.'
President Xi Jinping was on Thursday elevated as the "core leader" of China's ruling Communist Party, conferring on him a status similar to that of party founder 'Chairman' Mao Zedong that dilutes the three-decade-old collective leadership principle to avoid personality cult.
A genuine attempt was made to reset relations in a positive way, signalling a stepping back from the brink of conflict, much to the relief of the world, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Qiang Wei, the head of Beijing Olympic Security Co-ordination Group, said the 2008 Olympics security budget would be unveiled shortly
Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation', feels Claude Arpi
'Intrusions by PLA troops in the Ladakh sector are more in number than elsewhere and this region is now likely to remain an area of enhanced Chinese interest,' warns China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
Xi and Modi are scheduled to hold informal summit talks on Friday evening and on Saturday.
China on Tuesday said that the Dalai Lama can improve ties with it only by giving up wish for Tibetan independence and publicly announcing that Tibet is an inalienable part of the country.
Grieving relatives of those on board the ill-fated cruise ship that capsized in the mighty Yangtze were on Thursday barred from reaching the site as rescuers pulled out more bodies, taking the death toll to 77 amid assurances from China of "no cover up" in the probe into the tragedy.
The decision to permit the third child came after this month's once-in-a-decade census showed that China's population grew at the slowest pace to 1.412 billion amid official projections that the decline may begin as early as next year.
China is worried about the situation post the Dalai Lama and that his reincarnation could surface in Arunchal Pradesh, a region it claims as its own, but which is part of the Indian Republic, says former RA&W Additional Secretary Jayadeva Ranade.
How China's all powerful Communist party bungled the response to the coronavirus crisis.
Important for India was Xi's meeting with representatives of PLA officers and soldiers stationed in Tibet. The video of the encounter was interesting to watch, especially the large number of lieutenant generals and major generals, observes Claude Arpi.
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