This past week, His Holiness has been in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, the Union Territory where Indian and Chinese soldiers have been in a standoff for two years, since April 2020.
Xi is widely expected to continue in power for life.
Except for Xi, 69, all top officials including the number two leader, Premier Li Keqiang will be replaced in the massive reshuffle to follow in the days to come, which included a new foreign minister replacing the incumbent Wang Yi.
The Delhi Police, in a first information report (FIR) filed under anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) following allegations against news portal NewsClick, has alleged that a large amount of funds came from China in order to disrupt India's sovereignty and cause disaffection against the country.
The drills kickstarted on Saturday (April 8) right after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen returned from the US where she met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a meeting to which China strictly showed opposition to.
The Chinese army's Eastern Theatre Command stated in a terse statement that it had conducted 'combined combat readiness patrols and joint firepower strike drills' surrounding Taiwan.
A group of top American Senators who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week said they made a case to him that this is a battle between autocracy and democracy, and emphasised that democracies must unite in increasing their help to Ukraine.
'Even if there is no full-scale war, Galwan-like skirmishes cannot be ruled out.'
'I was exhausted, hungry, unshaven and despondent.' 'My mouth was full of sores due to dehydration.' 'My clothes were in tatters due to walking through bushes and sliding down thorny slopes,' Brigadier John Parshuram Dalvi wrote of his capture during the 1962 War.
China's size and ambition have enabled it to successfully penetrate every sector of the UK's economy, an influential parliamentary panel has said, warning that Beijing's national imperative continues to become a technological and economic superpower on which other countries are reliant, which represents the "greatest risk" to the UK.
The Chinese Communist party has not closed its door of contacts and negotiation with the Dalai Lama, a senior Communist leader wrote recently. Former RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade explains what the thinking on Tibet is likely in Beijing.
China last year pegged its defence budget at 1.45 trillion yuan, a 7.1 per cent increase. This year the defence spending is increased to 1.55 trillion yuan.
The Jaishankar-Wang talks came amid the dragging border row in eastern Ladakh that entered its fifth year in May.
Alibaba's pervasive economic and social influence in China is seen as a threat to the authority of the Chinese Communist party, notes Shyam Saran.
According to the MND, 15 of the 26 People's Liberation Army aircraft were observed in Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone.
Deputy US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on Wednesday announced that three indictments have been unsealed in the matter that collectively charge five Chinese nationals with computer hacking and charge two Malaysian nationals with helping some of those hackers target victims and sell the fruits of their crime.
Demonstrators believes the US is aggravating tensions between Beijing and Taipei, encouraging the Communists to perhaps strike militarily at Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi leaves the island.
The expose, which was in Chinese, said that the Chinese Communist Party was covering up the COVID-19 crisis and there was a human-to-human transmission of the virus.
However, the national party count has gone down to six from 14 in over seven decades.
Pakistan's deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who is in China on a four-day visit, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-chaired the fifth round of the foreign minister-level China-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue.
Bangladesh is in turmoil, which is not good news for India, which shares a porous 4000 km border with it. There is a danger of fundamentalism growing there, and India has to move in to reset its ties with the new dispensation before China and Pakistan make capital out of it, alerts Ramesh Menon.
The US president in the last several weeks has been very critical of China's inability to control the spread of the novel coronavirus within its territory. By Thursday more than 94,000 Americans have died due to the coronavirus and over 1.6 million have tested positive.
'In the short term the relationship will get worse.'
'Which will not happen.' 'Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has expressly refuted Beijing's statement that normalcy was returning to Sino-Indian relations.'
One person was killed and eight others injured when a series of home-made bombs packed with ball bearings exploded in front of a provincial office of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, two days ahead of the party's key meeting to finalise political and economic reforms.
On his maiden visit to Beijing, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during which the two leaders agreed to strengthen the all-weather friendship and the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
'The Ladakh clashes are mere warning signals of the storm to come on May 22 when the Chinese parliament meets,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
China has been trying to build lobbies of influence and mould public opinion in India since at least 2017, and large sums have been invested in the effort, reveals former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
'India imports 70 per cent of its bulk drugs from China. Are we going to live without antibiotics?' asks Debashis Basu.
'General Secretary Xi Jinping has greenlighted a brutal campaign of repression against Chinese Muslims, a human rights violation on a scale we haven't seen since World War II. Now, the PLA has escalated border tensions with India'
Less than a month after the historic visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US, a Congressional senatorial Committee has passed a resolution recognising Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India.
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.
National security, consolidation of border defences and border security highlights China's Tibet policy, points out Jayadeva Ranade, the former senior RA&W officer and China expert.
"This is Modi's India, this is new India. Now if anyone raises an eye against the country he gets a befitting reply," BJP spokesperson Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore asserted.
Dominic Xavier is puzzled by the government's reluctance to take on the Chinese unless the Modi Sarkar believes that in its interactions with Xi Jinping's Communist junta in Beijing, discretion offers better possibilities of resolution.
Home to 12 million Uyghurs, who are Muslim, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been the target of the Chinese Communist party's worst human rights excesses.
Indian Americans are likely to vote in the United States presidential elections based on what the candidates have done for them and not on the basis of their heritage or race, a newly formed body representing Asian communities has said, claiming that Republican candidate Donald Trump has a better track record than his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some US prominent lawmakers have urged the American government to follow suit as it is believed that the short video-sharing app is a major security risk to the country.
China on Tuesday urged US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to stop sowing discord between Beijing and countries in the region, undermining regional peace and stability, amidst his visit to India for a high-level dialogue aimed at further ramping up their overall defence and security ties, and boost strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
A visit to Tibet appears to have become the new touchstone for expressing fealty to Xi Jinping, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and distinguished China expert.
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