Indiatoday.in
Ananth Krishnan
October 15, 2015
First visit to India by a Vice Chairman of PLA’s Central Military Commission since 2004 is seen by Beijing as a significant boost to military-to-military ties.
Picture for representation. Photo: Reuters
The top-ranking General of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will visit India next month in what is being billed as the highest-level visit by the Chinese Army to India in more than a decade.
General Fan Changlong, the Vice Chairman of the PLA’s Central Military Commission (CMC), will travel to India next month to boost military to military ties, sources told India Today.
The visit is being seen by Beijing as the most significant military visit from China to India in a decade. The CMC is the most powerful decision-making body of the Chinese military. While it is chaired by President Xi Jinping, the two Vice Chairmen are the highest-ranking PLA Generals. The other Vice Chairman is General Xu Qiliang, a former PLA Air Force Commander.
The last visit by a CMC Vice Chairman was in 2004, when General Cao Gangchuan, who was also Defence Minister, travelled to India.
Since then, visits by top PLA Generals have been rare, underlining the wariness in military to military high-level exchanges. In 2006 and 2008, the PLA’s Air Force and Navy Chiefs visited, while in 2012 Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie, who was a member of the CMC but not a Vice Chairman, travelled to India.
The visit by General Fan is being seen in Beijing as a significant step in taking defence ties forward. His visit will follow a number of recent moves to expand confidence-building measures (CBMs) and ensure stability on the border.
Last week, both sides reviewed existing CBMs as a border consultation and coordination mechanism met in Beijing and reviewed steps to expand border personnel meeting points and direct lines of communication between military commands. The idea is to prevent recurrence of stand-off incidents which have recently cast a shadow on defence ties.
In August, both sides held a first personnel meeting at Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), the newest and fifth border personnel meeting point along the border and the second in the Western sector. Four other meeting points are in Ladakh, Sikkim and two in Arunachal in the Eastern sector.
This week, India and China are also holding the fifth round of annual defence exercises in Yunnan, in southwestern China, which will involve 10 days of counterterrorism joint operation drills. Both sides are keen to upgrade the exercises, which will conclude on October 22, for the next round to be held in India.
