LEH: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has been facing difficulty in acclimatising to the extreme weather conditions along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, and the China has now constructed several solar and hydel power plants to sustain the increased energy requirements of their troops.
Also, the Tibetan troops recruited by the Chinese Army for helping them in high-altitude areas are now visible as part of the People’s Liberation Army border defence patrols along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, according to the sources in the security forces.
The military stand-off between India and China has been going on for more than three years now after the Chinese try to unilaterally change the status quo at the LAC in Eastern Ladakh through large-scale aggression.
“After the large-scale deployments in 2020-21, the Chinese have had issues in maintaining troops there. For meeting their energy requirements, solar energy plants along with the Chinese had faced issues in meeting their energy requirements, especially during winters,” sources in security forces told a national newswire.
The Chinese Army has deployed almost 50,000 troops along the LAC after the 2020 clashes in the Galwan valley, and its energy requirements have gone up considerably in the forward areas which experience very low temperatures even in the summers, reports said quoting security officials.
Sources said that the Chinese have continued to maintain large-scale deployments and are taking steps to support their long-term deployment. India has also deployed an almost equal number of troops along the Eastern Ladakh sector to counter any possible misadventure by the Chinese in future.
Meanwhile, the sources said that the Tibetan troops recruited by the Chinese Army for helping them in high-altitude areas are now visible as part of the People’s Liberation Army border defence patrols along the LAC.
Soon after the aggression along the LAC in 2020, China started recruiting these soldiers to help them sustain in high-altitude areas as part of their long-term deployment plans there.
“The Tibetan soldiers are now visible as part of the patrols of their border defence troops but the majority continue to be the mainland Chinese soldiers,” sources in security forces told a newswire.
The Chinese have faced issues with their regular mainland troops to sustain themselves in high altitude areas and also have seen how the Indian Special Frontier Force troops including many Tibetan troops performed during the capture of high peaks in the Kailash ranges by the Indian Army, reports quoting sources in security forces said.
