China stretches road about 10-12 Km near Doklam, no strategic impact on India

A month after India and China resolved the 73-day long border standoff at Doklam near Sikkim, it has appeared that the People's Liberation Army has started constructing a road about 10 to 12 km from the site where the two armies were locked in a faceoff, Hindustan Times reported.

According to the army sources, PLA has started constructing a road in Chumbi valley but that area was already under the Chinese control and any sort of development in this area did not have strategic implications for India.

As per the sources, “The same equipment and workers are being used to strengthen an existing kutcha road about 10-12 km from the last faceoff site. The area is under their control.”

On August 28, both the countries had agreed to pull back troops to end the months-long Dokalam face-off. Troops of the two countries have been locked in a standoff in Dokalam since June 16 after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area.

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Indian troops intervened to stop Chinese troops from building the road close to the strategic Chicken Neck, the narrow corridor connecting India’s mainland with its North East.

India said China’s road building also violated the 2012 agreement between the Special Representatives of India and China to resolve the boundary issue. The agreement referred to the strategic tri-junction between India, China, and Bhutan.

Developments in the Dokalam standoff came after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China to attend a summit of BRICS. After that, China pulled back its bulldozers and other road-constructing equipment.

According to the paper Looking Beyond Doklam, a think tank set up by the defence ministry a decade ago, to demonstrate strength as peace along the disputed border or Line of Actual Control (LAC) is important for India will be “constantly and continuously” under stress with “increase in frequency, intensity, and depth of (Chinese) transgressions leading to more and more standoffs”.

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