China’s border infrastructure dwarfs India’s

(TibetanReview.net, Jan24, 2010)  An Indian army general has expressed concern that his country lags far behind China in military infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), reported Hindustan Times online Jan 23. China has built all-weather metalled roads leading right up to its border posts facing Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and Demchok and Fukche in Ladakh, Lieutenant General BS Jaswal, General Officer Commanding, Northern Command, was cited as saying.

Better connectivity allows the Chinese to cover 400 km a day. The Indian army finds it difficult to cover more than 200 km a day in the forward areas, the report said.

Likewise, Chinese military aircrafts can reach Shimla, Chandigarh and Leh within five  minutes and New Delhi within 20 minutes of taking off from their forward base in Gar Gunsa, across the border, from Demchok in occupied Tibet.

But on the Indian side, only AN 32 transport planes having “little operational value” can land on the airfields at Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Nyoma, about 220-250 km east of Leh. Tezpur in Assam is the only Indian airfield near the border with occupied Tibet from where warplanes could be deployed.

The report said China already had five such airfields in occupied Tibet where it had stationed warplanes.