PLA in Pakistan

Baibar of Jalat said:

I am planning to go to Gilgit in a month, hopefully. If I see some snickering Chinesemen, I will tell you guys.

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7000-11000 is not too small to be able to hide ..... esp. in those areas where population density is quite less. You should be able to spot them, if they are there. More so, because they can't mingle with the local population - looks would be very different.

But this will become a big news, only when Pakistan officially acknowledges. It has geo-strategic implications.

Just for analysis, if hypothetically this were true ->

(1) If this were true, PLA would surely gain a big geo-strategic advantage, but possibly at cost of getting sucked into the "war on terror". The area is heavily infested with PTOs (Professional Terrorist Organizations such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar et al).

And if I were to add, PLA has exactly nil experience in fighting terrorists. These folks are really professional terrorists ..... a world apart from that odd Filipino hostage taker.
(2) 7000-11000 is quite small a number to make a significant difference (unless there were plans to increase it subsequently).

(3) If it becomes official, expect some reactions from India, US at the very least. I don't think it will make any difference on the ground, though. But diplomatically, it will be an issue.

If China really gets to push the land route to Gwadar, atleast as of now it looks that, the cost includes sacrificing some PLA blood on Pakistani soil.

Next point to clear after Gilgit will be Balochistan ... which has lesser problems, but still has them.

There is something distinctly bovine about this story, but what exactly is harder to pin down.

A story remarkably absent from the media is the effect on NATO supply routes by the Pakistan floods (i.e. ground to halt as indeed as all offensive action scheduled for the surge this summer) and that it might be easier to send supplies via India through Kashmir if the route was open.

It is also true that for many of the reasons stated in the article, that some countries would be happy if Pakistan were to disappear and a disaster on the scale of the floods could in fact be big enough to cause this.

Very interesting times!

Bingo, can you please refrain from posting in red, as this colour is reserved for moderators performing their duties. Thank you

So, "DarkOrange" then ... next best, it looks like.

Very interesting times!

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Agreed.

Floods having "geo-strategic" significance.

Part of what I say below could have "joke" components. Not all below is serious.

China: If Pakistani economy gets further weakened due to floods, they won't be able to buy JF-17s.

Also, damn the Americans .. if they keep giving "free" F-16s to Pakistan, it will stop buying JF-17

Also, we are expected to send more aid .... Pakistan's ability to absord aid is truly infinite.

USA: need to spend more money to achieve the same damn thing done (eliminate terror). US would not have helped with so much aid, if it weren't for the war on terror.

Arguably, US would have wanted floods to do selective killing -> kill terrorists, leave others.

India: Wish Pakistan was to India, what South Korea is to China. Can't they do what South Korea did ? Missing Japan and South Korea in the neighbourhood

bingo said:

Arguably, US would have wanted floods to do selective killing -> kill terrorists, leave others.

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Where on Earth did anyone get that idea? When did flood became smart weapons that selectively targets terrorist? In fact, given the flood has pretty much wiped out all civilian government in the region, Taliban in the only one that actually benefited from this disaster.

All the flood did was leveling the playing field for Taliban, USA, China and India to "control" Pakistan, for the lack of better word. Flood has created a heck of power vacuum in Pakistan, and it is really interesting that no one on earth is taking advantage of the situation aside from the Taliban.

bingo said:

7000-11000 is not too small to be able to hide ..... esp. in those areas where population density is quite less. You should be able to spot them, if they are there. More so, because they can't mingle with the local population - looks would be very different.

But this will become a big news, only when Pakistan officially acknowledges. It has geo-strategic implications.

Just for analysis, if hypothetically this were true ->

(1) If this were true, PLA would surely gain a big geo-strategic advantage, but possibly at cost of getting sucked into the "war on terror". The area is heavily infested with PTOs (Professional Terrorist Organizations such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar et al).

And if I were to add, PLA has exactly nil experience in fighting terrorists. These folks are really professional terrorists ..... a world apart from that odd Filipino hostage taker.
(2) 7000-11000 is quite small a number to make a significant difference (unless there were plans to increase it subsequently).

(3) If it becomes official, expect some reactions from India, US at the very least. I don't think it will make any difference on the ground, though. But diplomatically, it will be an issue.

If China really gets to push the land route to Gwadar, atleast as of now it looks that, the cost includes sacrificing some PLA blood on Pakistani soil.

Next point to clear after Gilgit will be Balochistan ... which has lesser problems, but still has them.

Click to expand...

NYT article is Rubbish. No PLA and whats with your fantasy arguement. Alot of Chinese tourists and workers in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Balistan, thankfully, non have been killed or kidnapped. Full of "PTO", the people of GB and rest of Pakistan have rejected Al Qeada and Taliban. You dont know much about the people of GB to think they support Al Qeada?

SampanViking said:

There is something distinctly bovine about this story, but what exactly is harder to pin down.

A story remarkably absent from the media is the effect on NATO supply routes by the Pakistan floods (i.e. ground to halt as indeed as all offensive action scheduled for the surge this summer) and that it might be easier to send supplies via India through Kashmir if the route was open.

It is also true that for many of the reasons stated in the article, that some countries would be happy if Pakistan were to disappear and a disaster on the scale of the floods could in fact be big enough to cause this.

Very interesting times!

Bingo, can you please refrain from posting in red, as this colour is reserved for moderators performing their duties. Thank you

Click to expand...

How can India supply NATO, it does not share a land border with Afghanistan?
They can send it through Aksai Chan, Xinjiang and then through the wardakh corridor, thats their only option? Nato is still dependent on Pakistan. Floods are not gonna destroy Pakistan, just a setback.

Do you think article is largely true?

bingo said:

So, "DarkOrange" then ... next best, it looks like.



Agreed.

Floods having "geo-strategic" significance.

Part of what I say below could have "joke" components. Not all below is serious.

China: If Pakistani economy gets further weakened due to floods, they won't be able to buy JF-17s.

Also, damn the Americans .. if they keep giving "free" F-16s to Pakistan, it will stop buying JF-17

Also, we are expected to send more aid .... Pakistan's ability to absord aid is truly infinite.

USA: need to spend more money to achieve the same damn thing done (eliminate terror). US would not have helped with so much aid, if it weren't for the war on terror.

Arguably, US would have wanted floods to do selective killing -> kill terrorists, leave others.

India: Wish Pakistan was to India, what South Korea is to China. Can't they do what South Korea did ? Missing Japan and South Korea in the neighbourhood

Click to expand...

Floods also impacted Afghanistan, most of civilian goods go through Pakistan, i bet inflation is high in Afghanistan too.

Pakistan is linking itself with China, unfortunately some nations are fearful of encirclement thats why India has spent huge amounts to distablise Pakistani provinces. For example militants in Boluchstan have targeted Chinese in an attempt to drive wedge between Islamabad and Beijing.

I hope the author of the original article didn't mistake workers for PLA troops from China. Because, I have seen workers in China who are dressed in military camouflage uniforms, but are actually road sweepers (saw them cleaning up Shanghai zoo when I went there to see the pandas)!

To be fair, there are large red characters painted on the back of their shirts to identify them as workers. They also don't have rank and/or unit insignias (or at least I didn't see them).

Spartan95 said:

I hope the author of the original article didn't mistake workers for PLA troops from China. Because, I have seen workers in China who are dressed in military camouflage uniforms, but are actually road sweepers (saw them cleaning up Shanghai zoo when I went there to see the pandas)!

To be fair, there are large red characters painted on the back of their shirts to identify them as workers. They also don't have rank and/or unit insignias (or at least I didn't see them).

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The said author also believes that the Pakistani government is fighting on the same side as the Taliban and that the Chinese "Behemoth" would overwhelm Pakistan just as it did in the past with Tibet. It is very unlikely that such a guy would understand Chinese and even if he did, he would just say that they are soldiers any ways since most of his readers also probably couldn't read Chinese.

Spartan95 said:

I hope the author of the original article didn't mistake workers for PLA troops from China. Because, I have seen workers in China who are dressed in military camouflage uniforms, but are actually road sweepers (saw them cleaning up Shanghai zoo when I went there to see the pandas)!

To be fair, there are large red characters painted on the back of their shirts to identify them as workers. They also don't have rank and/or unit insignias (or at least I didn't see them).

Click to expand...

Military camouflage uniforms is favorite cloth for Chinese blue collars and farmers, my guess is that they are durable, and look smarter than ordinary cloth. There is no law against ordinary people to buy/ wearing these cloth, you can also buy the military winter coat on the streets, and these are also very popular. Also the police look-alike/security uniforms are also popular items.

People who are not familiar with China can easily mistaken these people as PLA or PLA engineering/construction corp, but then you can't blame the people with ignorant view since in the west the blue collars and farmers prefer to wear denim jeans. And I believe in some countries it is an offence to wear army/police uniform unless you are in the service.

Friends, looks like we have an anti-climax.

I have been looking at Pakistani news sites, but it's all about FLOOD FLOOD and FLOOD.The competition being played out is "who is giving more aid"

However, nothing on what I really went looking for.

SampanViking said:

Very interesting times!

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A bit less interesting, for now.

Pakistani is an aid black hole. The United States could give every Pakistani a million dollars and it wouldn't get a bit of gratitude or willing cooperation on the issue of the Taliban.