The list of core interests of China has grown over the last decade with President Xi increasingly using the terms of a national security law passed in 2015 to extend the formal status of “core interest” to territorial disputes in the South China Sea (SCS), the Senkaku Islands, and India's Arunachal Pradesh, a report by the US Department of Defence revealed.
The congressionally mandated report, titled '2024 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China' charts the current course of the country's national, economic and military strategy, and offers insights into the strategy, current capabilities and activities, as well as its future modernisation goals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
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The report said the Western Theater Command (WTC)— geographically the largest theater command—of China is oriented toward India and counterterrorism missions along the Central Asia borders of China. It is responsible for responding to conflict with India, border interactions with Central Asian states, and what the country refers to as the “three evil forces”—terrorism, separatism, and extremism in Tibet and Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China.
The primary focus of the WTC is on securing China's border with India. The report highlighted the 2020 clashes between soldiers of India and China in Galwan Valley—the most violent clash between the two countries in 45 years—and detailed how the theatre focuses on building infrastructure and support facilities to maintain multiple BDE deployments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
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Detailing the readiness of PLA, the report said, the Army "continued to improve its methods and standards of training combined arms units. Training encompassed individual to collective soldier events integrating reconnaissance, infantry, artillery, armor, engineers, and signal units. In addition to continued PLAA (People's Liberation Army Army) deployments to the Indian border and Burma, the PLAA conducted multiple large-scale exercises in training areas throughout the country.”
In recent cases involving land border disputes, China has sometimes been willing to compromise with and offer concessions to its neighbors, the US report said, adding, however, in the last decade, China has employed a more coercive approach to deal with disputes over maritime features, rights to potentially rich offshore oil and gas deposits, and border areas.