(TibetanReview.net, Jul30’22) – China now has 7,000 active Tibetan military personnel in its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), reported the news18.com Jul 29, citing an intelligence input. It added that around 1,000 Tibetans, including about 100 females, were enrolled in Special Tibetan Army Units.
Besides, the Tibet Military District was reported to have been recruiting Tibetans and Nepalis in the TAR who were proficient in Hindi language for career in the PLA as interpreters and intelligence-gatherers along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Officials were also stated to have visited colleges and universities in China in a large-scale drive to search for Hindi graduates for recruitment for LAC jobs in the PLA.
The Tibet Military District is under the PLA’s Western Theatre Command and oversees the lower half of the LAC such as areas bordering India’s north-eastern states of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, as well as Uttarakhand, the report noted.
In the face of an ongoing faceoff in the Ladakh border areas in the west and a volatile situation in the other LAC border areas, the armies of both China and India have been bolstering their cultural and linguistic training and recruitment drives to be able to understand the situation on each other’s sides better.
The Indian Army has also been training its officers in Tibetology and Chinese language. Several courses in Mandarin are also being run at the Language Schools at the Northern, Eastern, and Central Commands, aside from other training institutions, the report said.