New Delhi,
\nArmy Chief General Bipin Rawat today accepted that China was exerting pressure along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) but said India would defend every such intrusion.<\/p>\n
There is no settled border between the neighbours and the 3,488-km LAC is the de facto boundary. Addressing a press conference ahead of Army Day, he said: \u201cChina is a powerful country but we are not a weak nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if the media reports indicating increased activity by the Chinese along the LAC were correct, he said: \u201cBoth sides have increased patrol intensity so the contacts (troops coming face to face) are increasing. The varying perception of the LAC is causing overlapping claims but we have mechanism to counter the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever an intrusion takes place, we will defend,\u201d he said, citing the recent incident at Tuting in Arunachal Pradesh where India confiscated Chinese road-building equipment. \u201cThere are other areas where we are vulnerable due to lack of infrastructure. We have allocated troops which will take care.\u201d He said a hotline was coming up at the DGMO level between India and China that could sort out the increased number of intrusions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the military level, our focus has to shift to the northern borders. For too long we have focused on western border,\u201d Gen Rawat said. \u201cTo say that it will be an attrition battle and to think that China will come rolling down the hills, it may not happen,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
General Rawat said up to June 2016 it was an innocuous activity, but in June 2017 it became serious, so they intervened. The de-escalation has happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may come back here after winter or somewhere else. Should they come again, we will see what to do. In the west of Torsa nullah called northern Doklam, the People\u2019s Liberation Army of China has occupied the area. At the actual spot the two sides have disengaged. The tanks and guns that had moved in are gone. The tents remain. The observation posts remain. This is a territory disputed between Bhutan and China,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gen Rawat said: \u201cIf Pakistan raises a nuclear bogey, we will have to call their bluff. We cannot say that we will not cross the border because they have nuclear weapons. We will have to call their bluff.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the US admonition to Pakistan, he said it would be premature to say that everything is going to be in our favour and the US will do our job what we are expected to do vis-a-vis Pakistan. We have to do our own job. On being asked about the preparation of a simultaneous two-front war with Pakistan and China, he said: \u201cWe are ready for this contingency. We have plans to deal with this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat today accepted that China was exerting pressure along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) but said India would defend every such intrusion. There is no settled border between the neighbours and the 3,488-km LAC is the de facto boundary. Addressing a press conference ahead of Army Day, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18499,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497\/revisions\/18499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}