US ‘may be sending strong message’ to China with hypersonic missile test as arms race heats up
US Air Force says its final test of AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon on Sunday ‘intended to further a range of hypersonic programmes’
US and China expected to continue developing hypersonic weapons while also improving their defensive capabilities to neutralise these systems.
China's Indian land grab has become a strategic disaster, Xi Jinping faces dilemma in resolving crisis without losing face
The military standoff along the long Himalayan frontier between China and India may not be grabbing international headlines these days given the open warfare raging elsewhere in the world, but the threat of the confrontation returning to armed conflict cannot be discounted.
Last week, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar called the Chinese border situation "very tense and dangerous." Both sides have been significantly ramping up deployments of troops and weapons, girding for the possibility of war.
Soon to enter its fifth year, the current standoff was triggered by furtive Chinese encroachments into India's northernmost territory of Ladakh in April 2020, just before thawing ice would normally reopen Himalayan access routes after the brutal winter.
Ahead of this year's spring thaw and possible new Chinese provocations, India moved an additional 10,000 troops to the frontier.
China has also been expanding its troop presence and frenetically building warfare-related infrastructure along the inhospitable frontier. This has included boring tunnels and shafts in mountainsides to set up command positions, reinforced troop shelters and weapons-storage facilities.
In addition, it has planted settlers in new militarized border villages that are becoming the equivalent of the artificial islands it created in the South China Sea to serve as forward military bases.
About 100,000 troops remain locked in a faceoff along the border's westernmost Ladakh sector. Another key sector is the vulnerable area where the borders of Tibet, Bhutan and India's Sikkim state meet, a 22-kilometer-wide corridor known as "the chicken neck" due to the crooked way it connects India's northeast to the country's heartland.
The corridor's vulnerability has been increased by Chinese encroachments on Bhutan's southwest borderlands, with the chicken neck now potentially within striking distance of China's long-range conventional weapons.
There are also troop faceoffs in the eastern Himalayas along Tibet's long border with India's Arunachal Pradesh state. This has long been a heavily militarized area, largely because China claims the Indian state is part of Tibet.
Modi visits Bhutan to shore up India's position amid Chinese outreach
Thimphu keeping New Delhi 'in the loop' on boundary talks with Beijing,
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Bhutan, visiting to shore up ties with the Himalayan neighbour as rival China works to increase its influence there.
The trip, likely Modi's last foreign journey before he seeks a third term in India's weeklong general election starting April 19, comes about a week after he hosted the new Bhutanese prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, in New Delhi.
Attack in Pakistan's Gwadar strikes near heart of China's interests
Challenge of securing Belt and Road projects resurfaces for new Sharif government
A militant attack near the southwestern Pakistani port of Gwadar has reignited security concerns surrounding China's Belt and Road projects in the country, challenging the new government in Islamabad and undermining assurances to Beijing.
Eight militants stormed the Gwadar Port Authority complex on Wednesday, 7 kilometers from the port itself and operated by China Overseas Ports Holding as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). They crashed a car full of explosives into the gate of the complex, but it did not fully detonate. As many as five security personnel were killed, along with all eight attackers.
The South China Sea could boil over, America’s refusal to rein in China's aggressive expansionism may make a clash more likely
With the wars in Ukraine and Gaza stretching its military resources thin, a direct confrontation with China is the last thing the U.S. needs.
Already, the U.S. has allowed China to gain such a strong footing in the South China Sea that restoring the status quo of just a decade ago would be all but impossible without a full-scale war. And, as the recent increase in provocations in the South China Sea indicate, Xi is bolder than ever, despite the rising risk of escalation, accidental or otherwise. In the meantime, America’s failure to rein in China’s aggressive expansionism is undermining its own security and trade. interests.
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