It was a piece of intelligence worthy of what the Russians call the “tournament of shadows”, when the great powers of the era – London and St Petersburg – vied over central Asia more than a century ago. Then, maps and mavericks determined who held sway over a North-West Frontier that today has mutated into a battleground between ebbing US and surging Chinese influence. And the claim came from the top of the Indian military establishment.
Speaking in April, Lieutenant General K.T. Patnaik, the head of India’s northern command, maintained that Chinese soldiers were stationed on the highly volatile line of control that divides the disputed territory of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the nuclear-armed rivals.
“Many people today are concerned about the fact that if there were to be hostilities between us and Pakistan what would be the complicity of the Chinese?” Lt Gen Patnaik told his audience in Jammu and Kashmir, on the Indian side of the line. “Not only because they are in the neighbourhood but [because] they are actually stationed and present on the LoC.”