China is building a bridge across the Pangong Lake in its territory of Eastern Ladakh, satellite imagery shared by geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon on Monday suggests.
The bridge, which will reportedly serve to join the northern and southern banks of the lake, will boost China’s road connectivity in the sensitive border region, thereby facilitating the speedy movement of the nation’s army and weaponry.
Satellite images show China is building a bridge near the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Reports state that the bridge is 25 kilometers to 30 kilometers ahead of the LAC.
The bridge will join the northern and southern banks of the lake, boosting China’s road connectivity in the region.
Most importantly, the new bridge will help China deploy its troops and military equipment at a much faster pace. According to sources, is just east of Khurnak Fort in Rutog county where the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has frontier bases.
In 2020, tensions between India and China reached new heights resulting in a violent border clash. The clash left 20 Indian soldiers dead. As a result, it led to a military standoff. The two countries so far held at least more than 11 rounds of military talks for the disengagement process.
Ever since the military standoff began, both India and China made improvements to infrastructure in the region by building new roads, bridges, and landing strips. In 2020, India opened the strategic, nearly 9-kilometer-long Atal tunnel that shortened the travel time to Ladakh. The Atal tunnel, also the world’s highest-altitude tunnel helps India to rapidly deploy troops and equipment to Ladakh.
While the countries may agree on not engaging in a direct conflict, tensions, however, continue to rise. Recently, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs said it had “standardised” the names of 15 places in Zangnan (“South Tibet”) — Beijing’s title for the region India calls Arunachal Pradesh — and gave them all formal Chinese names.
In response, India called out China for assigning “invented names” to the places.
“Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be an integral part of India,” India’s foreign ministry said.
“Assigning invented names to places in Arunachal Pradesh does not alter this fact,” India further added.
Meanwhile, China asserted that “Southern Tibet is in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and has historically been Chinese territory,” adding the renaming came within “the scope of China’s sovereignty”.
