However, China's new civilian settlement presents India with a difficult set of challenges.
"It's serious because it is what they call in strategic terms salami slicing. China always follows the same pattern - that is to present the neighbor or adversary with a fait accompli," Arpi said.
China plans to spend 21 billion yuan on Tibet border villages.
The government in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has promised to build 624 new "well off" villages and farms on Tibet's borders, Chinese state media and Tibet Watch have reported in February 2020.
Tibet Watch said some of the new "border defense villages" are on routes which Tibetans took in the past to escape to India and Nepal. The settlements will involve 61,598 households and more than 240,000 people, with a total investment of around 21 billion yuan, Chinese state media said in 2019.
China's President Xi Jinping announced in 2014, "To govern the country well we must first govern the frontiers well, and to govern the frontiers well, we must first ensure stability in Tibet."
China's plans on Tibet pose a threat to India
The Hindustan Times, In a comment on March 31, pointed out that Tibet is under the spotlight after the Lianghui, or "Big Two", as the plenary sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) earlier in March. The NPC approved a 142-page, 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) and the Long Range Objectives through the Year 2035 for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China.
Setting at rest speculation regarding China's plans for the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo), the document confirms that a number of hydroelectric projects will be built along the river's lower reaches and that a massive dam three times the size of the Three Gorges Dam in Sichuan province will be constructed on the Great Bend on the Brahmaputra. The dams to be constructed on the young and fragile Himalayas will pose an ever-present danger to those living downstream, and adversely impact the livelihoods of millions of people who reside in the Indo-Gangetic plain.
Notwithstanding the ongoing talks for reducing tension along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and rebuilding of ties, the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) and the Long Range Objectives-2035 mentions a number of strategic military projects that are planned for completion. Many of these will reinforce China's existing border defense infrastructure in Tibet and directly augment the capabilities of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
The G219 and G331 national highways are to be upgraded and extended to run parallel to the G318 Sichuan-Tibet Highway, which will also be upgraded and runs along China's borders with India. The transportation network and Tibet's links to the mainland will be expanded with the completion of the new Chengdu-Lhasa railway line and development of Shigatse (Rikaze), Tibet's second largest city, as a rail transportation hub. The Chengdu-Lhasa railway will be the second strategic one connecting Tibet to the mainland and will be a high-speed railway.
At least 20 new border airports are planned to be built by 2025.
India will have to contend with a much-improved strategic border defense infrastructure and considerably enhanced Chinese military presence that will pose a long-term potential threat. China's 14th Five Year Plan and the Long Range Objectives2035 clearly point to a fraught and possibly dangerous period in India-China relations that lies ahead, the Hindustan Times concluded.
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