Spotlight on Chinese PLA

Title: Chi’s Military Power: A Net Assessment; Author: Maj Gen G.D. Bakshi (Retd); Publisher: Knowledge World, New Delhi; Pages: 380; Price: Rs.900
Chi is increasingly exercising the security establishment in India, given its muscle flexing, border incursions, and territorial and maritime claims involving countries that lie in the Indian Ocean. Gen Bakshi’s “Chi’s Military Power: A Net Assessment,” launched by Gen Shankar Roychowdhury, former chief of the army staff, is both timely and relevant. Gen Bakshi does not avoid uncomfortable issues but addresses them squarely in the light of Chi’s past military history. One of them includes the possibility of Chi attacking India. The author alyses the wars that Chi’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has fought since the Communists seized power in 1949 and its modernization on a colossal scale, particularly after the Gulf War. (IANS)