Articles By Claude Arpi
Beware, India! China’s Most Strategic Road
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 12 Jan , 2021
Beijing starts construction of strategic Xinjiang-Tibet highway, which will bring the greatest strategic change for India since the 1950s, as it will be an alternate artery for the Dragon to...
2021: Annus Horribilis for China?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 30 Dec , 2020
As the end of the year approaches, it is customary to look at the past twelve months and try to draw conclusions about the closing year’s happenings. 2020 will undoubtedly remain as an awful...
Where is Lobsang Gyaltsen?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 28 Dec , 2020
The Ninth Plenary Session of the Ninth Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of the Communist Party of China and the Economic Work Conference of the District Party Committee were held in...
Is China Building a New Front in the Himalayas?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 26 Dec , 2020
China is apparently planning to build a hydropower project over the Tsangpo river in Tibet —a project which it had previously assured was unlikely to happen. Not only is it another example of...
Ciao Zhao: What's cooking in the WTC?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 22 Dec , 2020
Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) promoted four military and one armed police officer to the rank of full general (Three Star) in Beijing on December 18. The new...
How Pakistan surrendered in 1971 War
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Courtesy: http://claudearpi.blogspot.in/ | Date: 20 Dec , 2020
Lt Gen Ashoke K Chatterjee, former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command speaks to Claude Arpi about the 1971 Bangladesh operations and his participation in the Surrender in...
Changing the Demography of the Border
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol. 35.4 Oct-Dec 2020 | Date: 17 Dec , 2020
The Sixth Tibet Work Forum (TWF), held in Beijing on August 24 and 25, 2015, was a turning point for the Tibetan plateau. Tibet Work Forums are large meetings called every five to ten years to...
Creating Havoc In Tibet And Downstream
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 06 Dec , 2020
Xi Jinping lectures During the recently held 7th Tibet Work Forum, President Xi Jinping pointed out that “protecting the ecology of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the greatest contribution to the...
The New Road and Hydropower Plant in Metok
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 04 Dec , 2020
On October 13, an article appeared in the Chinese press which made me think that there was something big in the offing. China Tibet News (in Chinese) reported that the Pai-Mo (Pe-Metok or...
Use Tibet links, counter China in the Himalayas
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 29 Nov , 2020
For millennia, the Himalayas have been an active bridge between the Indic and Tibetan civilisations. The great physical barrier has been a place of intense contacts between two worlds which shared...
Why India needs to Rethink its Tibet Policy, if there’s one
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 25 Nov , 2020
On 20 November, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) proudly announced that its Sikyong (president), Lobsang Sangay, had entered the White House. Dharamsala called it “a historic feat”,...
Indian Army Ignores Chinese Propaganda
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Courtesy: http://claudearpi.blogspot.in/ | Date: 23 Nov , 2020
“PLA unveils new smartwatch for combat rescue, it features IoT SIM card, health tracking, Beidou positioning, individual recognition, SOS voice calling, injury reporting, rescue sensing, one key...
The Tibet Factor in India-China Relations
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 22 Nov , 2020
Seventy Years Ago: Tibet Invaded October 7, 2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossing the Upper Yangtze and entering into the territory controlled...
India’s big blunders and China changing the posts
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 15 Nov , 2020
One of the greatest tragedies of post-Independence India is having let China occupy the Aksai Chin plateau and with barely any protest. The nation still suffers the consequences of this blunder...
Trouble Brewing over the Middle Kingdom
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 10 Nov , 2020
Is China doing well? The Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was held between October 26 and 29 at Beijing’s Jingxi Hotel; if one is to believe the...
The Soldier who Won India's First Param Vir Chakra
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 06 Nov , 2020
Our story starts during in the early days of October 1947 when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru received a message from a former deputy commissioner of Dera Ismail Khan [one of the province’s main...
A Nation without a Memory is a Dead Nation
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 04 Nov , 2020
I wrote for Friends of Tibet about The Importance of Memory October 7, 2020 marked the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossing the Upper Yangtze, entering into...
About the Land Dispute with Nepal
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 30 Oct , 2020
On May 8, 2020, an argument erupted between India and Nepal; the immediate reason which triggered the debate was an 80 km road between Darchula to Lipulekh, the border pass near the trijunction...
Step up pressure on Xi; bring France into Quad
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 27 Oct , 2020
An Indian army convoy moves on the Srinagar- Ladakh highway at Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. The Indian military said it apprehended a Chinese soldier Monday, Oct....
Gilgit-Baltistan, a Bit of History
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 21 Oct , 2020
Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) was recently in the news; according to Pakistani media, it will soon become the fifth province of the country. The announcement was made by Ali Amin Gandapur, the federal...