China’s military has stepped up efforts to recruit more Tibetans amid the dragging border standoff with India on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), conducting special recruitment drives across the Tibet Autonomous Region since the beginning of the year. Officials from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have crisscrossed the Tibet Autonomous Region, holding recruitment drives and picking up Tibetan recruits already at PLA camps.
There are also rumors that the People’s Liberation Army is planning to form a Special Tibetan Army Unit, citing intelligence reports and communications intercepts from three different intelligence agencies. If the plan goes through, this will be the first PLA formation made up of soldiers of a single ethnicity.
According to an intelligence survey, People’s Liberation Army officials from Lhasa visited Rudok town in Ngari Prefecture in the far west of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in the third week of February to recruit Tibetans as soldiers. These officials then traveled to Zanda or Tsamda County, one of TAR’s border counties, to choose Tibetan recruits from several PLA camps for potential induction into the special unit.
The PLA held a recruitment drive in Lhasa to induct a large number of Tibetans. The drive was carried out against the background of the standoff in Ladakh, and the PLA is expected to raise more Tibetan-led border defense regiments, according to the sources.
The disengagement process along the LAC has stalled after a small drawdown of troops, armored formations, and artillery on the north and south banks of Pangong Lake in February. Security officials in New Delhi have been keeping a close eye on these developments.
The most recent meeting of senior Indian and Chinese military commanders on April 9 ended with no progress on disengagement at other flashpoints including Depsang, Hot Springs, and Gogra, though the two sides agreed to maintain ground stability and prevent any new incidents.
These new recruitment drives come at a time when rumors are circulating that mainstream Chinese troops from lower altitudes are having difficulties in Tibet. According to intercepts, their troops suffered from health issues such as heavy mountain sickness and high altitude pulmonary edema. It is also meant to send a message to India and to Tibetans in India.
Last August, India sent the Special Frontier Force (SFF), a secret paramilitary force made up mostly of ethnic Tibetans, to take over strategic heights on the Pangong Lake’s south bank. During the mission, a Tibetan soldier was killed by a landmine explosion, and senior Indian officials attended his funeral, marking the first public recognition of the SFF’s use along the LAC and development seen as a warning to China.
According to Claude Arpi, a Tibet expert based in India, altitude sickness or a shortage of oxygen has been a problem for the PLA. Most PLA soldiers, unlike Indian soldiers, are not qualified to acclimate to high altitudes.
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