File photo: Indian Army Chief General Bikram Singh
Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh leaves for China late tonight as part of the new emphasis on increased military-to-military contact between the armed forces of the two countries. An Indian Army Chief is visiting China after nine years. (
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Gen Singh is scheduled to meet the Chinese Vice President. More importantly, he will hold one-on-one meetings with the Vice Chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission and the Chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army. (
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The Indian Army Chief will also address China's National Defence University.
The three-day visit is part of a plan for Confidence Building Measures or CBMs drawn up earlier this year by the two neighbours, who treat each other warily, not the least because of their long-standing border dispute. According to the plan, 10 Chinese and nine Indian military delegations are to visit each other throughout this year. (
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A Chinese PLA delegation led by one of its top military leaders, the deputy chief of general staff (operations) Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo, visited India in April this year and a team from the Indian Army's Eastern Command is scheduled to visit the Lanzhou Military Area Command in Gansu Province.later this year. (
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Also this week, for the first time, a Chinese military-media delegation will be in India to hold talks with the Indian Defence Ministry's media and publicity wing.
During the April visit of the high-level Chinese delegation, India and China earmarked four locations along their contested border for holding emergency meetings to quickly resolve possible standoffs and intrusions of the kind witnessed recently, which have led to tension at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as the unsettled border between the two countries is known. (
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Last year, a group of Chinese soldiers intruded deep into Indian territory in the Depsang plains of Ladakh and camped for over a fortnight, leading to heightened diplomatic and border tension. (
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New Delhi and Beijing decided to pursue the CBMs after their prime minsters signed of the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement in October 2013.
The plan to increase the frequency of military-to-military contacts will get a further boost when a two-year plan to post Indian Naval and an Air Force Attaches is implemented by end-2014. So far only an Indian Army Colonel and a Lt Col were posted in the Indian Embassy in Beijing.