In the last month, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has undertaken two highly-publicised visits to inaugurate 63 new bridges and 12 roads across seven states which border China . One of the bridges, on the Leh-Loma road which connects the largest town in India’s Ladakh region to areas along its disputed border with China, was described by the defence ministry as a 50-metre steel “superstructure” to facilitate “unhindered movement of heavy weapon systems, including guns, tanks and other specialised equipment”. What’s behind Modi’s surprise talks with Kashmir leaders? Singh’s trips coincided with a Bloomberg report – unconfirmed by New Delhi – that India had shifted at least 50,000 troops to the 3,488km Line of Actual Control (LAC), largely focusing on Ladakh in the western Himalayas where several clashes between troops took place last year. Retired colonel and journalist Ajai Shukla told Indian publication The Wire that the army had posted 16 divisions to the LAC, compared to 12 divisions last year. Weeks earlier, General Bipin Rawat, India’s chief of defence staff, stated that China and not Pakistan was now India’s “primary threat”. Military veterans and analysts say these developments reflect how New Delhi is changing its approach towards the disputed border that stretches from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. With at least 11 rounds of senior military commander-level talks to resolve the stand-off not achieving its aim for disengagement at three friction points – Hot Springs, Gogra and and Depsang – India’s strategy is to now publicise its actions and intentions to strengthen its military posture and border infrastructure, notwithstanding objections from Beijing. China urges India to make a move to ease border tensions “India has come to accept that if the Chinese need an excuse, they will come up with an excuse. Hence, India is no longer keeping Chinese sensitivities in mind,” said Deepak Sinha, a retired brigadier in the Indian Army who headed India’s only rapid deployment force, the 50th (independent) Parachute brigade. “Over a period of time, India has stopped caring about what the Chinese object to,” Sinha added. For Beijing, India’s infrastructure activities will be an irritant and a red flag, even as China maintains an advantage due to its consistent infrastructure upgrades over the past two decades. In March, Rawat, India’s chief of defence staff, admitted that India would take at least three to four more years to match China’s infrastructural capabilities along the LAC. The Hindu reported that surveillance had detected that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was constructing permanent accommodation, field hospitals and procuring snow mobility vehicles, a sign that they were preparing for “permanent winter occupation of these posts”. The Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhaduria, said last week that China had improved the “efficiency” of its air operations and had strengthened the infrastructure at its airfields since the stand-off began last year. Infrastructure push All this means that New Delhi has “no choice but to keep ramping up its infrastructure”, said Sinha, the retired brigadier. “The earlier logic that India followed, where we deliberately did not develop border infrastructure to slow down an adversary’s ingress into our territory, no longer holds because of missiles and long-range artillery that don’t require such advances,” he said. One key area of focus for the Indian government is to replace old bridges known as Bailey which are made of steel and have limited load-bearing capacities. “Most of these bridges can’t take heavy loads, and hence heavy artillery and tanks can’t be transported across these bridges,” Sinha added. India is ready to call the bluff of the PLA and hold the ground Professor BR Deepak BR Deepak, a sinologist and professor of Chinese studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said India was concerned that China could amass troops at a rapid pace along the LAC and India “does not want to be surprised any more”. “It is also a signal that if China could trash the peace and tranquillity agreements along the border, India would also be under no compulsion to adhere by them,” said Deepak. “India is ready to call the bluff of the PLA and hold the ground, an indication that India is according priority to its northern border along China, which wasn’t the case hitherto.” India’s second aircraft carrier has China in its sights Nowhere is this more difficult than in the Indian region of Arunachal Pradesh, where a large part of the 1962 war between both sides was fought. Beijing claims about 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 square miles) of the region as South Tibet. Infrastructure in the state remains poor. Last month, a lawmaker from the region, Ninong Ering, wrote to the Indian Railways Minister Piyush Goyal asking for his “immediate attention” to build railway connectivity in light of China’s trials of the high-speed railway line connecting Lhasa with Nyingchi – just 40km from the Indian border. Speaking to This Week in Asia , Ering said: “If a conflict happens [with China] here, the result for India will be worse than 1962 because we just won’t be able to move troops in time.” Sensitivities New Delhi possibly realises this – India is currently building a tunnel at the Sela Pass, located at over 13,000 feet, in Arunachal Pradesh. The tunnel will allow all-weather access to Indian troops in the region, connecting the city of Tawang to other areas around. Of the projects that Singh inaugurated last month, 10 roads and 29 bridges were located in Arunachal Pradesh. But even as it did this, a fracas exposed the complications of building infrastructure in such a geopolitically sensitive area. Singh inaugurated the projects by visiting a region called Kimin, which officially falls under Arunachal Pradesh but which officials – including Singh in his own tweets and even his ministry – portrayed as falling under the neighbouring Assam state. Interestingly, local officials even covered up plaques and signs that identified it to be within Arunachal Pradesh. When locals protested, the Border Roads Organisation, a central unit tasked with constructing border infrastructure, apologised for an “unintentional error”. But not many buy the explanation. China has, in the past, repeatedly objected to any high-profile visits by Indian leaders to Arunachal Pradesh, including a visit by Singh in 2019. China’s military build-up at border worries India, says foreign minister Ering said that the wrong depiction of Kimin was a sign that the Narendra Modi administration did not want to ruffle Chinese feathers. “The government did not want to show that the defence minister was in Arunachal Pradesh, so they covered up signages. Just because the Chinese might object, you can’t say Kimin is in Assam and not in Arunachal Pradesh,” said Ering. “Instead, the government should have publicised the visit and let the Chinese feel offended so that they know that Arunachal Pradesh is firmly in India.”