As tension escalates with India, Xi asks PLA to step up 'war preparedness'

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday ordered the military to scale up the battle preparedness, visualising the worst-case scenarios, as the two militaries are locked in an eye-ball-to-eyeball confrontation in eastern Ladakh, reports senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: Amid escalating hostility and tension in the border with India where soldiers of the world’s two biggest armies are engaged in a faceoff that is showing no signs of an immediate resolution, Chinese President Xi Jinping stuck a belligerent posture in his address at the plenary session of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police force in Beijing on Tuesday.

Underscoring that the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has had ‘a profound impact on China's security and development’, President Xi, who also heads the all-powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), said: “We should scientifically regulate and control the situation, step up preparations for military struggle, flexibly carry out actual military training, and comprehensively improve our military's ability to carry out military missions.”

The Chinese President’s strong statement at a time when the two militaries are locked in an eye-ball-to-eyeball confrontation in at least three locations in eastern Ladakh is confrontational to say the least.

On Tuesday, hectic parleys were on in New Delhi’s South Block which houses the defence ministry as top military officials huddled in a meeting with the defence minister.

Discussions on the situation are expected to prominently figure in the Army Commanders Conference that begins on Wednesday morning.

With 2020 being the year when the PLA’s 13th Five-Year-Plan ends, the Chinese President said in his address: “It is necessary to take extraordinary measures to overcome the impact of the epidemic, concentrate on planning and implementing tough battles, and ensure that major tasks are completed and strategic capabilities are greatly improved. It is necessary to formulate the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ for the construction of our army”.

During the plenary event, eight top officials delivered speeches focused on the PLA’s epidemic prevention and control tasks, the need to strengthen training and preparation for combat under the epidemic conditions, and accelerating biological security defence.

In a country where the political establishment has in the past struggled for control of the PLA, President Xi said the coronavirus pandemic had proved the ‘unity of the military, government and civilians’. “It is necessary to explore ways and means of training and preparing for combat under the conditions of normal epidemic prevention and control”.

Among the top officials who attended the event included Xu Qiliang, CMC vice-chairman who chaired the meeting, and important CMC officials including Zhang Youxia, Wei Fenghe, Li Zuocheng, Miao Hua, and Zhang Shengmin.