India’s provocative remarks likely to trigger another Doklam-like showdown: Chinese observers

BEIJING: Chinese observers with a warning in their bags said that provocative remarks by Indian officials, as well as surreptitious visit to controversial border regions, are likely to plunge India into another showdown with China like last year’s Doklam standoff.

India’s former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon on Wednesday accused China of wanting to “split” India and Bhutan over the Doklam standoff for political gains.According to a media report, Menon also asserted the need for an integrated approach in managing the country’s borders.

Zhao Gancheng, director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, told the Global Times that India has been sending rousing signals to China since the Doklam standoff of summer 2017, which makes the already soured Sino-Indian relationship more brittle.

Post Doklam standoff, China seems to be beefing up its military presence along the Indian border. Th focus is not just on number of troops but also on the quality of weaponary they have.

According to reports, China has equipped a branch of the PLA deployed along the Indian border with a powerful US-style integrated individual soldier combat system. This is in preparation for a future ‘informatised warfare’, a media report has said.Informatised warfare, a term widely used by the Chinese military in recent years refers to the use of IT, digital and artificial intelligence applications in battlefield conditions.