Reports: China secretly subverting India, is now top supplier to rebels
Monday, November 17, 2008 Free Headline Alerts
China has been active in supplying weapons and support to insurgents in northeast India, according to press reports from India and Britain.
For the past two years, China has been indirectly pressuring India by supplying arms and weapons to insurgent groups, the Times of India reported Oct. 31.
Jane's Intelligence Review reports that China has replaced Cambodia and Thailand as a key supplier of weapons to insurgent groups in India's northeast, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and the Taliban.
Jane's said the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a rebel group in Myanmar, acts as the middleman between Chinese arms manufacturers and insurgent groups in northeast India, with most weapons routed through China’s Yunnan Province. The weapons are then sent by land to Myanmar, and from there to the Indian border at Tamu, opposite Manipur.
China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the reports as “groundless” and a spokesman said China does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
According to the Times, India has raised the weapons provisions during meetings with the Chinese.
Suspicions among Indian security services are based on the fact that no markings were found on Chinese-made weapons.
U.S. intelligence agencies said similar unmarked weapons have been founded in Iraq and were traced to a Chinese manufacturer.