China Military Recruiting Jobless Tibetans To ‘VOLUNTEER’ Militia
China’s PLA has actively started recruiting local, unemployed youth in Tibet to form a “volunteer” militia. They will operate in the border areas between Tibet and Sikkim as per intelligence reports received. Military and intel experts say India should not be too worried about the development but must keep watch on it all the same.
India’s 3,488-km border with Tibet runs from Ladakh at one end to Arunachal Pradesh. Though as per the Chinese, Arunachal is part of southern Tibet.
The drive to recruit the new local militia comes as the stand-off between India and China continues in Ladakh part of the Chinese have forcibly occupied since 1962. Things again escalated in June 2020 along the LAC in Ladhak.
According to the intel inputs, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and police authorities are recruiting unemployed youth from the Yadong county, located opposite Sikkim, and other neighbouring areas in the region.
The inputs suggest these cadres would be sent to police and PLA centres for training and subsequent employment.
Sources said those at police centres would be trained for duties at vehicle check posts, those related to immigration, and law and order at model “xiaokang (well-off)” villages, which have reportedly been built all along the border between Sikkim and Tibet in keeping with President Xi Jinping’s vision for frontier governance.
“To govern the country well we must first govern the frontiers well, and to govern the frontiers well we must first ensure stability in Tibet,” he was quoted as saying in 2013.
The youth trained by the PLA, meanwhile, could be deployed as reinforcements for the regular Chinese army units when needed, the inputs suggest.
Some of the recruits, the inputs say, are being trained by the PLA to keep a watch on residents at the border — for the purpose of gathering intelligence — and could be put on duty at border trade markets and the xiaokang villages.
It was also reported this April that China has stepped up recruitment drives in the Tibet Autonomous Region, with plans to create a Special Tibetan Army Unit.
An intel source said the recruitment of the volunteer militia may not have major implications for India. However, the source added that it has to be ensured that linkages between the populations on either side, if any, are not exploited in any way.
Reached for comment, Lt Gen. S.L. Narasimhan (Retd), a member of the National Security Advisory Board, said that the terrain in the region is such that any sort of intelligence gathering would be a difficult task for any person.
“Firstly, the border areas are well held in that sector by troops on our side, so it is not easy for anyone to come across and gain access to our side. In a few areas, where the troops may not be manning right up to the LAC, the terrain is so rugged that it would not help in any kind of intel gathering,” he said.
Lt Gen. Narasimhan added that it would be prudent to wait and watch, but said there would not be major implications of the move.
Amid what is described as a crackdown by the Chinese government on their culture and traditions, scores of Tibetans have fled to India over the decades, with their government-in-exile also functioning from Dharamsala.
Thousands of Tibetan refugees who now call India home comprise a military type formation known as the Special Frontier Force, which took part in several operations conducted by the Indian military at the LAC IN Ladhak last year.
The SFF was formed in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 war with China.
