US pulls troops from Germany to block China
America’s military drawdown from Germany will free up resources to help counter China’s threat to Southeast Asia.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says America’s military drawdown from Germany will free up resources to help counter China’s threat to Southeast Asian countries and to India, which remains locked in a stand-off with Beijing on their Himalayan border.
The comments come as new satellite pictures shot by US-based space technology firm Maxar Technologies appear to show a significant build-up of Chinese structures on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control since brutal June 15 clashes in which 20 Indian soldiers died along with an unknown number of People’s Liberation Army troops.
Mr Pompeo told the Brussels Forum, an annual platform to discuss trans-Atlantic issues, that countering Beijing’s territorial aggression was “the challenge of our time” and the redeployment of up to 10,000 troops from Europe would help the US do that.
“The decision that the President made with respect to Germany is an outcome of a collective set of decisions about how we are going to posture our resources around the world,” he said in a virtual interview late on Thursday.
“I just talked about the threat from the Chinese Communist Party ... threats to India, threats to Vietnam, threats to Malaysia, Indonesia, South China Sea challenges, The Philippines.
“We are going to make sure we are postured appropriately to counter the PLA. We think that is the challenge of our time and we are going to make sure we have resources in place to do that.”
The deadly India-China border clashes are the latest of a series of regional disputes in which Beijing is seen as the aggressor, including in the South China Sea where it has trained radar guns on a Philippines naval ship, sunk two Vietnamese fishing boats, and harassed a Malaysian survey ship.
India and China have held diplomatic and military talks since the “medieval” June 15 conflict in the Galwan Valley where the two sides clashed over what Beijing claims was “provocation” by Indian soldiers, and New Delhi says was PLA troops’ failure to honour an agreement to withdraw from advanced positions.
No shots were fired (as dictated by 45-year-old border protocols), though dozens of soldiers died from injuries sustained from rocks and nail-studded clubs, while others died of exposure to sub-zero temperatures after falling, or being pushed, off a steep ravine.
But even as talks have taken place — including at foreign minister level this week during a virtual summit with Russia — the PLA is said to have increased its presence by as much as 30 per cent in several sensitive areas along the 3488km de facto border.
Ajai Shukla, a former Indian military officer turned defence analyst, told The Weekend Australian the satellite pictures revealed a Chinese camp 1.5km over the Indian LAC in Galwan Valley but no Indian camps or posts because New Delhi had agreed on June 6 to demilitarise the area.
Mr Shukla said India faced a greater threat of a “two-front war” on its border than at any time in the recent past thanks to deepening economic and diplomatic ties between China and Pakistan, both of which accused India of changing the status of disputed Kashmir by bringing Ladakh under central government control last year. Islamabad and Beijing could use the two-front strategy “as a retaliatory measure to up the cost of any escalation by India, or if India activates Tibet”, for instance by declaring it a disputed territory, he said.
India has fought wars with China and Pakistan over their respective disputed borders on the Ladakh frontier which also borders Tibet, India’s Himachal Pradesh, Indian Kashmir and Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region.
While New Delhi has emphasised its desire to de-escalate the conflict with China — which it accuses of amassing thousands of additional troops at the border since late April — it is also working to plug gaps in its border defence systems.
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly pressed Moscow during a visit this week to speed up delivery of the $US5.2bn, S-400 surface-to-air missile system capable of detecting and shooting down ballistic missiles, enemy jets and drones up to 600km away.
China, which also enjoys strong defence ties with Russia, already has the S-400 system.
More Coverage
‘Hour of anguish’: Control tower under-staffed, Trump blames DEI
Preliminary FAA report finds one air traffic controller was guiding both helicopters and planes on the night of the Potomac mid-air crash, Trump blames diversity hires for undermining standards.
Trump’s pick to lead FBI doesn’t support pardons for Jan 6 rioters
Kash Patel said he did not support blanket pardons for rioters who had engaged in violence against police — putting distance between himself from the President.