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.
Indian Armed forces will leave no stone unturned to safeguard the country's frontiers, he insisted.
India and China have announced a series of measures aimed at improving their relationship, including maintaining peace along the border, reopening border trade, and resuming direct flights.
China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, close to the Indian border. The USD 137 billion project, which is expected to dwarf even China's own Three Gorges Dam, has raised concerns in India and Bangladesh, the downstream riparian states. Concerns in India are centered around China's potential to control water flow, potentially enabling the release of large amounts of water to flood border areas in times of hostilities. The dam is part of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, and the Chinese government claims that the project is safe and prioritizes ecological protection.
India was fooled into believing that Communist China wanted a 'negotiated' settlement with the Tibetans; it was never the case, says Claude Arpi.
Two super high altitude firing ranges were made available to the armed forces for the practice of various kinds of weapons and surveillance equipment in Arunachal Pradesh within an aerial distance of 50 kilometres from the highly sensitive Line of Actual Control, sources said.
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.
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.
The brigade that conducted the drills was from the PLA's Tibet Military Command and is one of China's two plateau mountain brigades.
'The PLA has continued to do exercises and drills and recently carried out air exercises with fighter jets.'
Gen Wang is the fourth commander to head the Western Theatre Command after the eastern Ladakh standoff began in May last year.
The Tibetan nation still lives under the yoke of the Chinese Communist Party, and Beijing today has a guilty conscience; this creates a great uneasiness for Xi Jinping and his colleagues observes Claude Arpi.
'Chinese soldiers don't have much experience of fighting in these kinds of areas and operating in this kind of terrain'
The Sichuan-Tibet Railway will be the second railway line into Tibet after the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project. It will go through the southeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, one of the world's most geologically active areas, according to the Chinese official media.
He said China's "growing imprint" will surely increase contestation and competition in the economic domain and it will attempt to keep India engaged on issues relating to the unsettled borders.
Why is China's supreme leader promoting Han Chauvinism so aggressively, asks Claude Arpi.
The marchers -- many wrapped in the red, yellow and blue flag of Tibet and dressed in traditional robes -- chanted and played drums, holding a minute of silence for their "martrys" before starting a "peace march" along Lake Geneva.
The military preparations underway show that the PLA may undertake operations this summer to achieve whatever objectives they could not achieve last May, asserts Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
Indian officials said Doval's visit will be rescheduled as he is preoccupied with the handling of the Pathankot incident.
The earthquake damaged houses, roads, as well as other infrastructures, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted eyewitnesses from the area as saying.
Districts along the Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh have been put on high alert for possible flash floods.
'Tibet remains a prickly issue between the giant Asian nations. China still claims more than 80,000 sq kilometres of Indian territory in the Northeast. Why? Just because Beijing refuses to acknowledge the McMahon line which separates India and Tibet, and this, simply because the 1914 Agreement delineating the border was signed by the then government of independent Tibet with India's then foreign secretary (Sir Henry McMahon),' says Claude Arpi.
China plans to divert about 200 billion cubic metres of water annually from the Brahmaputra at its highest point, namely the Great Bend, where it turns into India. China's Brahmaputra dam will severely impact India, warns former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
The world must hang its head in shame for being a mute spectator to the 'cultural holocaust' in Tibet, says Major General Mrinal Suman (retd).
Currently, the reserve forces are under the dual leadership of military organs and local Communist Party committees and they would be brought under the control of the ruling party and the CMC from July 1, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
A senior discipline inspection official has "lambasted some party officials for allegedly donating money to the 14th Dalai Lama
Though Beijing asserts the Dalai Lama's successor needs its approval, observers say it remains concerned as the present Panchen Lama, the number two spiritual leader who was appointed by it after unseating the boy nominated by the Dalai Lama, has not gained much traction in Tibet.
'Tibetans don't have jobs, and the military provides a job offer.' 'But the issue is whether China really trusts Tibetans.'
"The government is aware that China is developing infrastructure in border regions opposite India in Tibet and Xinjinag Autonomous Region. This includes the Qinghai-Tibet railway line with proposed extension upto Xigaze and Nyingchi and the development of road and airport facilities," Defence Minister A K Antony told the Rajya Sabha
China plans to build a 540-kilometre strategic high-speed rail link between Tibet and Nepal passing through a tunnel under Mount Everest, a move that could raise alarm in India about the Communist giant's growing influence in its neighbourhood.
China is building the world's highest-altitude cloud computing data centre in Tibet that will meet the data storage needs of the country and South Asian nations like Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, official media reported on Thursday.
Xi arrived at the Nyingchi Mainling Airport on Wednesday and was warmly welcomed by local people and officials of various ethnic groups, Xinhua news agency reported.
'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.
Arpi deserves to be complimented for the commitment and hard work that have gone into this production. The frustrations of seeking reliable documentation from the catacombs of the Indian bureaucracy did not deter him from going after the best information available, and the result is one that he can take much satisfaction in. Ambassador Prabhat P Shukla, Member Advisory Council, Vivekananda International Foundation, reviews Claude Arpi's The End of an Era: India Exits Tibet.
"So far Tibet is concerned, our position has all along been that the issue has to be resolved between different sections of the people of Tibet and People's Republic of China through dialogue and not through force," he said during an interaction with journalists at an orientation programme on Parliamentary reporting.
'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.
"China has prohibited the Chinese media from reporting on 18 subjects, including yuan revaluation, corruption and problems in Tibet and the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region," the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun has reported.
The people who know Tibet will continue to fight the good fight. Long, hard, less than hopeful, but always peaceful.
The Chinese authorities have been rapidly building defence infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control, indicating that they are preparing for a long period of tension with India, points out Jayadeva Ranade, the former senior RA&W officer and China expert.
Experts said the direction is meant to maintain party unity.
