Chinese nationals have started occupying several of their model “Xiaokang” border defence villages across India’s north-eastern borders which the country has been building along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) since 2019, has learnt.

Senior officials familiar with the matter said the Chinese, in the last few months, have started occupying a couple of these villages built on its side of the LAC across from Lohit Valley and the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh.

China has been constructing 628 such “well-off villages” along India’s borders with the Tibet Autonomous Region, including along Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh for over five years now.

While the exact nature of these villages is unclear, the dwellings are understood to be “dual-use infrastructure” — for both civil and military purposes — and seen as a Chinese assertion of its territorial claims along the LAC. They have thus remained a concern for the military.

So far, the double-storey, large and spacious buildings constructed as part of these villages  along the LAC were unoccupied. In the last few months Chinese nationals have been moving in — it’s not known if the occupants are civilians or military personnel.