Satellite images show China expanding infrastructure at multiple sites along and near the disputed India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh, as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in New Delhi on Saturday for the BRICS summit and talks with Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi.
The imagery shows new buildings, roads and helipads in parts of the Upper Subansiri Valley, one of the inaccessible sections of the frontier where competing territorial claims have left communities living near the border concerned about their ancestral lands.
People in remote frontier villages say they are being pushed back from areas used for yak grazing and hunting as China expands its presence in the region. China claims Arunachal Pradesh in its entirety and refers to it as Zangnan or Southern Tibet.
Takok Mra, who spoke to an international media outlet by phone from Gelemo village around 20 kilometres from the border, said that Chinese forces were encroaching on land used by his community for its livelihood.
“The Chinese are currently encroaching on our ancestral land. We eat, survive and run our livelihoods from here, and it is our land,” Mra said.
He said that Chinese forces had already entered what he described as Indian territory, although he could not give an exact distance for the reported advance. Mra also added that he was willing to fight the Chinese army if the situation reached that point.
Satellite imagery provided by Vantor shows construction and infrastructure changes at several sites in the Upper Subansiri Valley, where Mra’s village is located.
Analysts from Janes, a global open-source intelligence company, identified two sites near Zhari town in northern Lhunze County in Tibet as showing the clearest activity.
“The satellite imagery confirms there is recent construction in the areas of interest,” Janes analysts said.
The analysts said that when the imagery was compared with the competing border interpretations of India and China, some of the infrastructure appeared to sit within territory claimed by both countries, placing it in the disputed zone.
The findings come as Xi meets Modi during his first visit to India since the 2020 Galwan Valley border skirmish, in which at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
Both governments have sought to play down tensions along the border and denied there is an active standoff similar to the clashes in 2020.
