India’s new bridges may worsen standoff along tense China border

Bloomberg

India opened dozens of new bridges — many of them providing all-weather access along its disputed border with China — in a move that could provoke a fresh round of tensions.
Eight of the bridges are in the Ladakh province, where India and China have each amassed over 50,000 soldiers, tanks, missiles and have put on fighters on stand-by, while eight are in Arunachal Pradesh in India’s remote northeast, a region claimed by China where the border dispute is the sharpest, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Monday. Another four are in the Himalayan region that witnessed a months-long military standoff in 2017 over the Doklam plateau, claimed by China and Bhutan, India’s ally.
Built to allow faster movement of troops, artillery, tanks and even missiles closer to the border, news of the bridges came as senior military officials and diplomats met on Monday for the seventh time to restore calm after previous talks ended in deadlock.
“These bridges are designed to facilitate movement of heavy civil and military traffic in border areas,” said Lieutenant General Harpal Singh from the Border Roads Organisation which builds all infrastructure along South Asian nation’s borders.
Under PM Narendra Modi, India has ramped its infrastructure along the border. It has completed 74 roads along the eastern border, with plans to finish 20 more by next year. It will reduce time taken to move and material by half and help 431 villages that lie across the region during the Covid-19 outbreak.
India and Chinese troops have been deployed within rifle range of each other along the Himalayan border in the Ladakh province since May in the worst military crisis between the neighbors since the 1962 war. Shots have been fired and as many as 20 Indian troops and a number of Chinese soldiers were killed in a clash along the disputed border on June 15.