Chinese Misadventure

According to a report by PTI, in an address at an online seminar, Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria, referring to the eastern Ladakh row, suggested that any serious conflict with India does not suit China's global aspirations and "grand plans". He said the face-off could be the result of a "military dominated misadventure" that escalated following the rapid trust deficit Beijing faced in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Military might

The IAF Chief also cited a number of other possible reasons for China to trigger the standoff that included a plan to engage with India in the border talks from a new position or an aim to fine tune Beijing's new military structures and technologies. Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria said the Chinese military resorted to heavy deployment of military systems like surface-to-air missiles and radars but added that India has also taken steps to deal with the situation.

Sino-Pak Axis

"This would require a focused approach especially with respect to China as they have invested heavily in research and development and have grown manifold in capabilities and technologies," he said. The IAF said the regional security scenario could become more challenging following withdrawal of the American forces from Afghanistan and suggested that China could try to expand influence using Pakistan.

Military Signalling

"Was it simply military signalling, was it domination efforts focused on the region with adequate control to escalate...was it deployment and training of their western theatre forces in a real war like scenario wherein the Galwan incident was an overreach or was it to fine tune and enhance the military technologies and fill their gaps to get their forces to synergise with the new structures and technologies," he said.

High-Risk Scenarios

"With the new PLA doctrines underscoring the importance of developing force projection capabilities to counter US global dominance, there is a direct impact of such development on our security matrix," he said. "For example, what happens if China was to use one of such launching pads for an action against us in a conflict situation? Does the third country port or launching pad become a target for us or not? What are the implications? It is something we need to factor in, it is something that needs to go into our planning process and thinking process," he said.