Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping has praised a border-guard battalion in Tibet, which shares boundary with the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The president has said the troops have done a ‘great job’ in the past five years. This was reported by the Chinese official media here Tuesday. The battalion developed in Tibet will certainly increase India’s headache. India have been in a state of escalated tension with China since the Galwan Valley clashes in June last year.
Xi Jinping visited Nyingchi, the Tibetan border town close to Arunachal Pradesh in July. He became the first Chinese president to visit the remote border areas in Tibet.
“President Xi writes back to a plateau-stationed border-guard model battalion. He said they have done a great job in the past five years and has encouraged them to make new contributions to the Party and the people,” the state-run ‘Global Times’ reported Tuesday.
The model battalion is under the Xizang (Chinese name for Tibet) Military Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), it said. In 2016, Xi bestowed special honours on a PLA military battalion posted in Tibet. He did so for its ‘outstanding performance in safeguarding borders’.
Xi heads the Central Military Commission (CMC) – the overall command authority of the PLA. He signed orders to give honorary titles for the battalion in 2016. “Troop 77656 is now titled as a ‘model plateau battalion’ for its outstanding performance in safeguarding borders, ensuring stability and helping disaster relief,” the state-run Xinhua news agency had said in a report in August 2016.
The model plateau battalion is reportedly one of the six battalions functioning under the Tibet Military Area Command.
China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet, which is firmly rejected by India. The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).