NEW DELHI - A day after U.S. President Barack Obama left here following a state visit, a former defense minister told the Indian Parliament that he had information that China could make a surprise attack on India.
Mulayum Singh Yadav, now the leader of the Samajwadi Party, led his party members to make loud noises in the Lower House of the Parliament, warning the government to be alert.
Hundreds of thousands of kilometers of Indian territory are still under Chinese occupation, and our subsequent governments have not been able to take that back," Yadav said Nov. 9.
He said the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Ladakh are particularly vulnerable, as China views these regions as its own. He said China has built eight-lane roads in its territory close to the border with India.
A senior Indian Defence Ministry official said the ministry has full knowledge of the developments along the Indo-Chinese border but that there is no cause for alarm.
India and China fought a brief war in 1962 over a territorial dispute, an issue that has yet to be settled despite several rounds of diplomatic talks.
Relations between the countries have been sour for more than two years. Last year, Beijing objected to a visit by the Dalai Lama, currently in exile in India, to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Dalai Lama is the religious leader of Tibet, an annexed region of China.
India has been preparing to fight China and is working to buy light howitzers from the U.S. subsidiary of BAE Systems in a government-to-government deal. India also is developing infrastructure along its Chinese border, and adding troops that are being trained to fight at high altitudes.
E-mail:
vraghuvanshi@defensenews.com.
Indian Politician Warns of Chinese Threat - Defense News
Originally Posted by russellsimpson
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