Sikkim, India.
Posted on 04/21/2006 6:26:41 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
KOLKATA: China-watchers are not jumping with joy ahead of the reopening of the famed Silk Road for trade, which was sealed off during the Sino-Indian war of 1962.
Beijing and New Delhi announced last week that in June trade vehicles will start trundling again through the 4.5km-high Nathu La pass on the Himalayan border between Sikkim and China's Tibet region.
Today India carried out a mock trading exercise at Sherathang, five kilometres from the Nathu La pass, which will be the main trading post with banks, telecommunications, customs and excise, as well as lodging for security personnel.
Security experts are warning, however, that India's counter-intelligence costs will rise after the reopening, as Nathu La is close to the insurgency-wracked northeastern region where Beijing has allegedly been fanning revolts for decades.
"Chinese spies will find it easier to slip in through Nathu La," said a retired joint director of India's Intelligence Bureau. "They will stoke insurgency, monitor troop deployment and gain access to refineries and warfare training centres," added the China specialist.
Another security expert, Brahma Chellaney of New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research, said: "At one level, India and China are cosying up to each other and talking of the 21st century as an Asian century. But the grim reality which New Delhi is trying to shrug off is that both the Communist Party of China (CPC) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) are hostile to India beneath the veneer of bonhomie."
The route was scheduled to be reopened last October. But the plan was shelved after the Indian army expressed security concerns, forcing an 11th-hour postponement which apparently angered Beijing.
Although the objections were later overruled by Delhi, Lieutenant-General Arvind Sharma, the army commander responsible for the defence of eastern and northeastern India, says there is no question of troops along the India-China border being reduced after the reopening.
General Sharma, who recently visited China as a PLA guest, told senior commanders on his return: "We won’t lower our guard. Trade is one thing, national security another".
"...China's Tibet region"??
"...China's Tibet region"??
"We won’t lower our guard. Trade is one thing, national security another".
Sounds like some US policy makers could learn a thing or two from the Indian Army.
I think this quote is from the '60's, at a time when tension between China and India was at a high point:
"...a secret report prepared by the CIA stated that the objectives of China's foreign policy were 'to eject the West from Asia… to increase the influence of Communist China in Asia and through the underdeveloped areas of the world and supplant the influence of the USSR in the world.' "
Sikkim, India.
That's some very beautiful country you've got there.
"When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before."
Kipling was no fool, this is par for the course. My money is on Indian counter-intellegence, but the Chinese are a very tough group of players too. We will have to see.
I think thats the Kanchenjunga the world's third highest peak after Everest and K2.
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