For all of its recent activity, China’s military remains untested. The clash with India was an isolated fight with rocks and clubs, not firearms, so it was hardly a test of Chinese military preparedness

India Warns China That Attempts To Alter Status Quo Will Have ‘Ripples, Repercussions'

➤ India on Friday warned China that trying to alter the status quo on the ground by resorting to force will not just damage the peace that existed on the border areas but can also have "ripples and repercussions" in the broader bilateral relationship, and demanded that Beijing stop its activities in eastern Ladakh.

➤ The only way to resolve the current military standoff along the LAC in eastern Ladakh was for Beijing to realise that trying to "change the status quo by resorting to force or coercion, is not the right way forward,” India's ambassador to China Vikram Misri said in a hard-hitting interview to PTI.

➤ Asserting that actions taken by the Chinese forces on the ground have damaged "considerable trust" in the bilateral relationship, the Indian ambassador added that it was entirely the responsibility of the Chinese side to take a careful view of the relations and to decide which direction the ties should move.

Xi Jinping's Expansionist Dreams

“China's power is growing at a much greater rate than the other regional powers,” said Adam Ni, director at the China Policy Centre, a research organization in Canberra, Australia.

“This has really given Beijing more tools at its disposal to push its more assertive and aggressive agenda.”

The increased operational tempo this year follows a military modernization program that began in the 1990s and accelerated under China’s ambitious and authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping.

He steadily purged the military’s top ranks of corrupt or insufficiently loyal officers and shifted the focus of the People’s Liberation Army from heavy ground battles to more agile joint operations using air, naval and, increasingly, cyber weapons.

China's Untested But Deadly Military

➤ In the East China Sea, the patrol by a Chinese submarine last week was the first detected since 2018, when Japanese warships forced a nuclear attack submarine to surface. It follows rising tensions over Japan’s administration of the Senkaku Islands, which the Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands.

➤ “When China views it is being challenged in these other sovereignty disputes in this era, it will respond with a very tough line,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on China’s military.

➤ “China never had the ability to assert itself in the maritime domain until really in the last 10 or 15 years,” Fravel said, noting the steady build-up of China’s naval and air forces.

He added, “That has enabled China to press its claims in the East and South China Sea more than before.”It has also stepped up patrols in the skies over the region.

➤ Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander of the Pacific Air Forces who will soon take over as the Air Force chief of staff, said Wednesday that China had only occasionally flown missions of its H-6 bombers but was now doing so almost daily.

➤ Those bombers, while old, have been revamped and equipped with new missiles that China put on display at the military parade in October commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

➤ For all of its recent activity, China’s military remains untested. The clash with the Indians was an isolated fight with rocks and clubs, not firearms, so it was hardly a test of Chinese military preparedness. It did raise questions about training and discipline.

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