O pinio n

Satellite images show China road runs

deep into Arunachal: Defence expert
Abhijit Iyer-Mitra
Backed by significant infrastructure and two possible military bases, a
nearly one-km-long road originates in China and runs deep into India.
ABHIJIT IYER-MIT RA
6 September, 2019 9:19 am

T he major points of interest discernible on this road are that it has two possible military bases, two
checkpoints, a clearing/gathering area and the final point of entry into India

W
hen the Indian Army Wednesday denied BJP MP Tapir
Gao’s claim that China was intruding into the
Chaglagam and Bishing area of Arunachal Pradesh, I
decided to look for anything that might hold as
evidence of intrusion. I found no discernible evidence of intrusion
in the Chaglagam region of the state. However, based on help
from various open-source intelligence, or OSINT, handles, what
we ended up detecting is far more serious: not only have the
Chinese intruded in the northern region at Bishing about 175 km
from Chaglagam, but they have also built a road approximately 1
kilometre deep into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control.
This road enters from the east where the border runs north-
south, and runs parallel to the east-west orientation of the
border. 

Im age 1

Im age 2
Im age 3

Im age 4
Images 1 to 4 show the general location of the areas we are
speaking about: Chaglagam, where we were not able to establish
any specific incursion has the red marker, and the grey marker
on the top shows the Bishing salient on the Brahmaputra, west of
the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary. 

Im age 5

Image 5 shows the distance between the incursion point at

Bishing and Chaglagam, which was also part of the MP’s claim,
and the incursion point’s relative position to the Dibang
Sanctuary.
 Im age 6

Im age 7

Using Google’s native measurement tool, image 6 shows the road,

running from east to west, is 942 meters deep into the Indian
territory and runs parallel to the border at an almost consistent
depth of 300 to 400 meters (image 7).
 Im age 8

Image 8 shows the topography of the region. The thin trail is

visible starting south of Degangsi, while the red marked box can
be further expanded into Image 9 (below). 
 Im age 9

Image 9 shows the thin road entering India just where the border
switches from west-east to north-south running parallel to a
valley. It may be noted that trade opportunities here are non-
existent given the absence of a joining road from the Indian side.
This leads to a high probability that the road construction project
is about creating facts on the ground.

What are “facts on the ground”? Basically when a border is

disputed, the creation of population centres or infrastructure
essentially forces a border to be redrawn. Assume for example
that China agreed in 2015 that the LAC as is was the border, the
fact that they have created infrastructure 1km west and 300
meters south into Indian territory, while India has nothing in the
region, would mean that China will essentially insist the LAC be
moved south of its constructed infrastructure. This is how Israel
also lays claim to much of the West Bank — by creating
infrastructure (and population centres) to muddy the border. The
question is, what could these facts on the ground portend? 

Im age 10

There are three possibilities as shown in image 10 above.

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1: This could mean a southwards annexation from the east-west

border orientation to gobble up the entire valley until it meets
the plain further west (marked by the red line)

2: It could mean establishing further claim on the hill ridge just

south of the road and also up to the point where it tapers down
into the Brahmaputra plain (marked by a dotted blue line)

3: Maximally, it could mean a full extension up to the

Brahmaputra to completely cut off this salient (two possibilities
marked in light pink – The first possibility is the road itself is
treated as the border and is extended up to the Brahmaputra at
the point shown – that is to say an extension of the red line. The
second possibility (flowing from option 2 above – China claiming
the mountain ridge south of its road as the border) is that it
draws the line from the end of the mountain ridge to the
Brahmaputra; that is to say as an extension of the blue dotted
line.

Note: In this particular salient, the border is the Brahmaputra

marked in light orange. 
 Im age 11

As image 11 above shows, at worst we could be looking at a loss

of an entire salient that juts into China as shown. Given the
seriousness of the situation, we decided to purchase high
resolution time series imagery to confirm the road was in fact
constructed by the Chinese. The results were startling.   

Im age 12. Tim e series anim ation courtesy: @sentinel_hub and @CopernicusEU

Starting in 2017, this animation (image 12) shows a clear

westwards expansion originating from China (the red line marks
the border). What is significant about this road is that it is backed
by significant infrastructure within China from its starting point
on the Brahmaputra and virtually no infrastructure of note on
the Indian side. 

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Im age 13

The major points of interest discernible on this road are that it

has two possible military bases, two checkpoints, a
clearing/gathering area and the final point of entry into India,
which as of now are clearly inoperative given the depth of the
intrusion (image 13). Below are the high-resolution images of
each of these points of interest.
 Im age 14. Courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

The first is a possible military base on the Brahmaputra (image

14). This shows some clearly developed infrastructure including
car and truck fuel stations and construction. Noticeable is the
complete lack of civilian presence, huts, etc. The reason we are
convinced it is a military base is due to the sheer lack of civilian
habitation around it, though it could equally be an innocent
outpost, which is just not commercially viable.
 Im age 15. Courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

Possible military base two on the other hand (image 15) is much
more pronounced: the buildings are mostly large and
administrative in nature with excellent quality construction and
a significant human presence. Of particular note is the extensive
and high perimeter wall separating an administrative area. Given
the population outside this administrative area is not high (a
hundred or so at most), the size of the buildings seems to indicate
a military administrative outpost, built for scaled up operations,
if and when desired. 

Im age 16. Courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

Image 16 shows what we have labelled the North Checkpoint. The

opening here has clearly been made much earlier. The greening
of the clearing shows that there was not much human or vehicle
movement here allowing the grass to grow back. Again, there is a
solitary building here with a side road leading from and joining
back onto the main road, presumably to not let the oncoming
traffic block the main road. 
 Im age 17. Courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

The next point of interest related to the portion of the road still in
China is a large artificial clearing (image 17). We are unable to
determine the exact purpose of this clearing, given that even time
series did not show the presence of construction equipment or
camps. However, given the precipitation and rate of flora
regrowth, the barrenness of this clearing is important, though we
are unable to determine the exact reason, save the prolonged
presence of humans and or vehicles.
 Im age 18. Courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

The clearing leads to the “southern checkpoint” (image 18). Given

its location atop a relative elevation (as can be seen in the inset),
we suspect this to be more of an observation outpost than a
checkpoint. The blue roofs are a clear indication of ownership
(Indian installations use green corrugated iron while the Chinese
use blue).

Im age 19. Courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

Finally, we come to the border (marked by the red dotted line).

Note the complete lack of any Indian presence here in image 19:
be it on the border or on the first clearing or the second clearing.
As the time series animation in this article showed, these two
clearings came up post 2017 clearly as an extension of the
Chinese road. It is also important to note here that while the
Chinese have expanded the road into Indian territory, they have
not built any structure inside India. The road leading further
west from the second, larger clearing on the left of the image
above goes a further 200-500 metres, although we are unable to
plot exactly how far.

Im age 20

What we can say with absolute certainty is that even though we

could not find bulldozers (MP Tapir Gao made a clear claim of
bulldozers being used), we did find tell-tale marks (image 20) of
bulldozer usage on the westernmost clearing on Indian soil. The
east-west orientation of this bulldozer activity is in the same
direction as the road that is proceeding further into India. At any
rate, the use of some heavy earth moving equipment is obvious,
and given there is no suitable access to this point from the Indian
side, these bulldozers could have only come from China. This
means the Chinese have used heavy earth moving equipment,
possibly bulldozers, deep inside Indian territory.

The findings of Chinese intrusion deep into Indian territory,

without any challenge or counter from the Indian side, is clear
and unambiguous in the Bishing salient. The Chinese have
entered at least 1 kilometre into Indian territory, constructed a
motorable road using heavy earth moving equipment and all of
this has been done systematically and persistently since 2017 at
least, without any visible Indian opposition.

This clearly proves BJP MP Tapir Gao’s claim. It is therefore

highly likely that his claims regarding an incursion into the
Chaglagam sector could also be true. However, as of now,
possible incursions in Chaglagam are neither visible to satellite
nor backed up by a visible, motorable road or supporting
infrastructure on the Chinese side of the border. What remains to
be seen is how this situation develops and how it is countered,
given the total lack of response from the Indian government to
this alarming development since 2017.

Time series animation courtesy: @sentinel_hub and @CopernicusEU

High-resolution images courtesy: @sbreakintl and @detresfa_

The author is a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and

Conflict Studies. He tweets @iyervval. Views are personal.

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