Hong Kong. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the growing tension in the South China Sea continue to grab headlines, but what is forgotten is that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is constantly strengthening its position on the border with India. Even in the US Intelligence Community's Annual Threat Assessment published earlier this year, the tension on the border between China and India was included in just one paragraph among all the other existing conflicts, threats and tensions in the world .

The report assessed that the disputed border between India and China would continue to be a cause of tension in their bilateral relations. Although there have been no major border clashes between the two sides since 2020, they continue to maintain large military deployments.

Sporadic encounters between the two military forces risk misunderstanding and escalation into armed conflict. In April this year, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College published a report examining in-depth PLA activities along the mountainous border in Aksai Chin in 2020-21.

Its author, Dennis Blasko, primarily looked at how the PLA had rapidly moved troops into the region after violence broke out between Chinese and Indian troops in the Galwan Valley on June 15-16, 2020. Blasko, a former US defence attaché in Beijing and Hong Kong, assessed that the PLA was prepared to maintain deployments along the LAC in Aksai Chin and the border in Doklam indefinitely, barring negotiations with the Indian military and government to withdraw troops from the region.