Bangalore, December 6
The Indo-China joint military exercise, currently underway in the forests of Belgaum in Karnataka, has raised the hackles of Tibetan refugees living in Karnataka. “I am hurt,” said Thondup Tsering, principal of Tibetan Children Village in Bylakuppe in Mysore in Karnataka.
While Tibetans are generally not happy with any kind of improvement of ties between India and China, the latest joint military exercise has a particular significance for the Tibetans. This is because the Chinese troops, participating in the joint exercise with a Maratha Light Infantry Battalion in Belgaum, are affiliated to the Chengdu Military Region. The Chengdu Military Region (CMR) is a military administrative command located in the southwest of China. The areas covered by the command include Sichuan, Yunnan and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Tibet originally comprised the three provinces of Amdo, Kham and U-Tsang. While Amdo has been split by China into the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan, a large area of Kham has been incorporated in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai. U-Tsang, together with western Kham is today referred to by China as the Tibet Autonomous Region. The overseeing command of the army unit doing joint exercise here, thus, looks after the operations in TAR and vast tracts of areas that have historically formed a part of Tibet.
CMR forces are also deployed along the borders China has with Myanmar and the Himalayan nations.
“We are very unhappy about the joint exercise,” Tema Tsewang, who is president of the Tibetan Youth Congress unit in the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe in Karnataka, said. He did not rule out holding a protest demonstration against the joint military exercise.
A 137-member strong Chinese Army contingent led by Senior Colonel Huang Xue is taking part in the joint exercise which is said to be indicative of the mutual concerns the two countries have on tackling terrorist violence in Asia. Starting from today, the exercise is slated to continue till December 14.
Called Hand-in-Hand 2008, the exercise involving the third largest army in the world and the largest army of the world is a continuation of Army-to-Army cooperation initiated between India and China in 2006. The exercise will finally culminate in a joint counter-terrorist operation against enemy in simulated conditions.
The "Hand-in-Hand 2007" had taken place in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province of China.
China is facing threat from insurgents in its Xinjiang province. Xinjiang, however, falls under Lanzhou
Military Region.
