India, China plan military drill on terror

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 5

In what promises to be a unique joint military exercise, the armies of India and China will get together to understand and practice methods to tackle the transnational terror.

The next round of India-China joint military exercises named ‘hand-in-hand’ will have “transnational terror” as its theme. The exercise is planned between November 15 and November 27, under the aegis of the Pune-based Southern Army Command. This will be the sixth edition of the exercise, first since December last year when Beijing passed a law authorising its military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations and even sent off some 5,000 troops to tackle the Islamic State in Syria.

Both countries separately face transnational terror in their respective regions – India in Kashmir and China in Xinjiang ( lying north of J&K in India). Both nations also have collective threat of their own youth joining the IS.

From India, the Maratha light infantry will participate while China is yet to convey the formation of its own troops. The scope of the exercise shall include visualisation of a terrorist-related crisis situation; evolution of joint drills for conduct of counter-terror operations and include a live drill to neutralise a terrorist.

The last one – the live drill — was also practised at the previous edition of the hand-in-hand hosted by China at Kunming. It was a mock exercise depicting counter-terror operations along the Sino-Indian border.

Since May last year, the two countries – despite their differences over inclusion of India in Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and India’s stance to have freedom of navigation in the disputed South China – have actually increased their bilateral military engagement.

The India-China joint statement at Beijing after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had spoken about the need to “expand the exchanges between the border commanders, and establish border personnel meeting points at all sectors of the India-China border areas”. The two leaders had committed to enhancing border defence cooperation and tasked the militaries on either side to meet each other often.

After this, the two sides, in an unprecedented development, conducted a set of two separate exercises along the disputed 3,448 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the de facto boundary running all along the east-west axis of the Himalayan ridgeline. One of the exercises was conducted in the eastern sector and other in China’s Moldo Garrison facing the Chususl sector in eastern Ladakh. New Delhi has now proposed to expand the scope of this joint-military exercise also.

Also, this year, the two countries have opened a new Border personnel meeting (BPM) point east of Daulat Baig Oldie on the disputed Depsang plains in sub-sector north (SSN) of eastern Ladakh. It is one of the areas where disputes on the location of the LAC abound.