In mid-June, the troops of the two Asian giants were involved in violent clashes in the Galwan valley in the western Himalayas, which resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers.
China has not confirmed whether there have been casualties among its ranks as a result of what was the worst clash between Asian giants since 1962.
According to the Chinese newspaper Diário da Defesa, an official military newspaper, five new divisions of the militia, including mixed martial arts fighters and climbers who participated in the team that carried the Olympic Torch to the top of Everest, were presented on June 15 during an inspection official in Lhasa.
National television channel CCTV released images of hundreds of graduating soldiers in the capital of Tibet, near the border with India.
The deployment of militias, including elements of mixed martial arts, “will greatly improve the organization and mobilization force” of the troops as well as their “speed of response”, said Wang Haijiang, commander of the regional military zone, quoted by the newspaper .
The militiamen were recruited to “strengthen the border”, underlines the Diário da Defesa newspaper in an article published last week on the social network WeChat, according to the agency France-Presse.
The newspaper does not establish any direct relationship between this increased presence at the border and tensions with India.
On thursday, India has announced that it has stepped up deployment of troops to the region.
China claims about 90,000 square kilometers of territory in northeastern India. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometers of territory on the Aksai Chin plateau, in the Himalayas region, a contiguous part of the Ladakh region.
India unilaterally declared Ladakh a federal territory in August 2019. China was one of the few countries to strongly condemn the measure, referring to it in international forums, including the United Nations Security Council.
The UN urged both sides to “exercise maximum restraint”.
– .
