More than four years have passed since the conflict in the Galwan Valley on the border between China and India. Due to China's reasonableness and moderation, the conflict did not escalate into a war in the end. However, the two sides have maintained a considerable military standoff on the border to this day. In April 2024, the Institute for Strategic Studies at the U.S. Army War College published a study on the Sino-Indian border by Dennis Blasco, the U.S. military attache to China. From the perspective of the U.S. military, he analyzed the confrontation between China and India in 2020-2021, especially the deployment of the PLA in the Sino-Indian border area. Blasco judged that unless the two sides negotiate a formal withdrawal and an agreement is reached, the PLA will remain indefinitely near the Line of Actual Control in Aksai Chin and in the Doklam border area.
Based on military geography and commercial satellite imagery of the Sino-Indian border, this person argues that the PLA has only 20,000 ground troops on the Western Front, rather than 50,000 as the Indian media portrays. With such a small number of troops spread across such a wide border and the fact that the main logistics facilities are still 1,600 kilometers away, it means that the PLA is taking a defensive posture rather than an offensive posture. In addition, on satellite images, there is no heavy equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles assembled on the front line, and the deployment of PLA troops is far from the density required to launch an offensive campaign.
However, Blasco noted another problem, and that is China's efforts to build battlefields in the border areas. On the Chinese side, roads and bridges and other transportation facilities are being built day by day, and only two bridges have been built on Pangong Lake to span the north and south banks. The improvement of these transportation infrastructure means that once there is an operational need, the PLA can quickly gather troops, equipment, and supplies, and can quickly move forward to deliver troops, and can quickly form an overwhelming advantage over the Indian army. At the same time, these good infrastructure facilities also provide conditions for the PLA to be stationed in these alpine and oxygen-deficient areas for a long time, and the PLA no longer needs to return to the rear for the winter before the heavy snow covers the mountains, as in the past, and then return to the front line when the spring flowers bloom in the second year. In the past, because Leh, Srinagar and other places were closer to the Line of Actual Control, it was relatively difficult for the PLA to be stationed at all seasons and at all times, which left an opportunity for the Indian army to infiltrate and occupy it.
Today, the PLA has established many large-scale military bases not far behind the Line of Actual Control, which has solved the logistical support problems such as heating for the winter, camping on the plateau, and eating and drinking water, and has been able to stay on the border line for a long time throughout the year without gaps. These large bases not only have good fortifications and living facilities, but are also able to store a large number of weapons, ammunition and living provisions, and the front line has been held for longer and longer without supplies. Blasco also pointed out that the PLA garrison camps are often equipped with advanced vegetable greenhouses, and they can't eat all the fresh vegetables they produce themselves.
The Americans also compared the PLA's long-term operations on the plateau and its firm entrenchment in the frontiers with its tactics and tactics of asserting sovereignty in the South China Sea. In the South China Sea, China has also turned once uninhabitable islands into large islands, building airports, residential buildings, radar stations and other facilities, and even hospitals, supermarkets and sports grounds. The navy and coast guard units are stationed, as well as early warning planes and antisubmarine planes, and the troops stationed on the island have a good living environment and can be stationed for a long time.
It seems that this US military attache in China has really collected a lot of information about the PLA. But to be honest, this is the fuss of foreigners who do not know the history of the PLA. As a veteran of more than 30 years of military experience, I am all too familiar with all this. I can say that there is no army on this planet that has such a tenacious vitality as the PLA. The red rice and pumpkin soup on Jinggang Mountain, the Nanniwan land reclamation in the Yan'an period, the agricultural and sideline production in the sixties and seventies of the last century, "do it yourself, have enough food and clothing" is the tradition of our People's Liberation Army. When I was working in the grassroots units of the People's Liberation Army, an average of three people had to raise one pig and five people had to plant one cent of vegetable plots, and I couldn't eat them all, so I saved money to buy books and cultural and sports equipment. A force like the PLA can take root and blossom anywhere, whether it is your US army, the Japanese army, not to mention the Indian army and the Philippine army, can you fight the PLA?