China remains a formidable challenge and has increased its presence not only along India’s land borders, but also in the maritime domain by leveraging anti-piracy operations to normalise its naval presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), Navy Chief Admiral R. Hari Kumar said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a separate event, Army chief General Manoj Pande said there are still two friction points at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh that India and China need to move forward.
Admiral Kumar was speaking on the security challenges that India faces. He noted that China had maintained continuous presence in the IOR since 2008 using anti-piracy operations “as the reason”.
