India-China talk disengagement, PLA beefs up on LAC with more missiles, rockets and howitzers

According to national security planners, the PLA is undertaking fresh deployment and relocation of both troops and heavy equipment in all the three sectors with fresh constructions of revetments in finger area of Pangong Tso.

Updated on: Feb 8, 2021, 13:38:09 IST

By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi, Hindustan Times

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Although India and China have completed nine rounds of military talks on disengagement in the Eastern Ladakh theatre, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is showing no signs of de-escalation along the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control (LAC), reinforcing artillery guns, self-propelled howitzers and surface-to-missile units in Tibet.

According to Indian army commanders, there has been a marginal increase, new revetments and relocation of deployments between finger four and finger seven on north banks of Pangong Tso.

According to Indian national security planners, the PLA is engaged in fresh deployment and relocation of both troops and heavy military equipment in all the three sectors with fresh constructions of revetments (sloped protection against ordnance) in the finger areas of Pangong Tso.

There is evidence with South Block to indicate fresh deployment of 35 heavy military vehicles and four 155 mm PLZ 83 self-propelled howitzers in sheds around the Shiquanhe PLA camp, just 82 kilometres from the LAC across Chumar in Eastern Ladakh.

Additional deployment of vehicles, heavy equipment and new construction work was observed last month near the Rudok surveillance facility, 90 km from the LAC, with four new large sheds and partition quarters for troops. Both Rudok and Shiquanhe are in the occupied Aksai Chin area.

According to Indian army commanders, there has been a marginal increase, new revetments and relocation of deployments between finger four and finger seven on the north bank of Pangong Tso. It was the Chinese PLA’s aggression on finger the 4 mountainous spur on the northern banks of Pangong Tso on May 5, 2020 that led to escalation of military tensions along the LAC.

While induction of 20 military vehicles and equipment has been nobserved around the Piue radar site, 16 km from the LAC, the PLA is also strengthening positions around Spanggur Tso with induction of more firepower and troops in late December 2020.

“The PLA is strengthening all along the 1,597-km LAC in Ladakh with a view for long-term deployments. The fortifications around Spanggur Tso are designed to support Moldo Garrison in Chushul area with Indian Army dominating heights in Kailash Ranges,” said an official in the know of the military deployments.

The PLA has also moved a surface-to-air missile (SAM) unit near the PLA camp in Lhasa, 228 km from the Indian border, to protect the one-time seat of 14th Dalai Lama with some 30 vehicles moving the military equipment under camouflage in the second half of January 2021.

Fearing an Indian Air Force (IAF) attack in Tibet’s hinterland, the PLA has deployed SAM units and anti-aircraft guns around all major towns along the LAC.

While a new military shelter comprising 4-5 barracks has been observed across the Lipulekh pass in the middle sector, the presence of PHL-03 multi-barrel rocket launchers (MBRLs) at Rubinkha PLA camp just 23 km from the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction is a matter of serious concern because PLA is continuing its push in the strategic area. The PHL-03 MBRLs is a Chinese copy of the Russian Smerch rocket system with the Indian Army.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.