Whether Depsang Plain is China’s Main Target

The strategically-located Depsang Plains in Ladakh did not find any mention in the defense minister, Rajnath Singh’s detailed statements in Parliament, despite Chinese soldiers blocking all Indian patrols there since April and a massive mobilization by the two rival armies in the region.

A senior defense official said Depsang was an “old lingering issue” that should not be “equated or conflated” with the “new flashpoints” in Pangong Tso-Chushul, Gogra-Hot Springs and Galwan Valley this year. “There is no immediate military standoff at Depsang, where there are huge overlapping claims about the Line of Actual Control (LAC). There is no fresh attempt to change the status quo there”, he added.

But there is growing concern in security circles that China could be diverting India’s attention from the far more important Depsang region through its aggressive maneuvers in the Pan-gong Tso-Chushul and other areas lower down along the frontier in Ladakh. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has for the last five months been actively blocking Indian soldiers in Depsang from going to their traditional Patrolling Points 10, 11, 11A, 12 and 13, which are well short of India’s LAC claim further to the east there, as was earlier reported by TOI. The PLA troops camping near the ‘Bottleneck’ or ‘Y-junction’ area in Depsang, which is around 18 km inside what India perceives to be its territory, swing into action to block an Indian patrol whenever they see it approaching.

China, in fact, claims 972 sq km of territory in the region. A core concern for Beijing is that the Depsang-Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector is in close proximity to its Western Highway G-219, which connects the Tibetan Autonomous Region to Xinjiang. The PLA has deployed over 12,000 troops, with tanks and artillery guns, from its 4th Motorized Infantry Division and 6th Mechanized Infantry Division, in its depth areas across the LAC there.

Since May this year, India has also counter-deployed with two additional brigades (each has around 3,000 troops) as well as tank and mechanized infantry regiments in the Depsang tabletop plateau, which located at an altitude of 16,000 ft provides access to the DBO advance landing ground and the critical Karakoram Pass in the north.