New Delhi, Nov. 4: The Indian Air Force today landed an aircraft at an advanced landing ground near the border with China in eastern Ladakh, infusing in this week’s show of bonhomie an element of rivalry that marks the relationship with China.

The airfield in Fukche, an IAF station at 13,700 feet, is a gravelly runway about two miles from the Line of Actual Control. It was last used in the 1962 war with China.

At 7.53 this morning, an AN 32 transport aircraft of the Chandigarh-based 48 “Camels in the Sky” squadron landed on the unpaved surface, marking the revival of the airfield.

The re-opening of the airfield was on the cards since April this year when the Centre decided to upgrade advanced landing grounds near the border with China.

But it is the timing of the event — when the head of the IAF, Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major, is visiting China and the chief of the Chinese PLA Navy, Admiral Wu Shengli, is visiting India — that makes it a diplomatic event.

In May, the IAF revived an advanced landing ground at Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) near the disputed Karakoram Pass.

Both DBO and Fukche are near Aksai Chin, the area ceded by Pakistan to China but territory that India claims.

This week, an IAF chief is visiting China after seven years. The Chinese admiral’s visit to India is the first by a PLA Navy chief. Air Chief Marshal Major is being hosted by the chief of the PLA Air Force, General Xu Qiliang, and is likely to witness an air show.

“We should now be able to induct and recycle troops in these places faster,” said a senior IAF officer. “You have to note the rate at which the Chinese have upgraded the infrastructure along their side of the border.”

The advanced landing grounds have been used mostly as dropping zones over which transport aircraft parachute crates of supplies to the soldiers. Helicopters have landed at both DBO and Fukche but landing fixed-wing aircraft is a more risky operation in the rarefied atmosphere.

A third advanced landing ground at Chushul in Ladakh will also be reopened but work on it can start only after the winter. DBO is also being connected by road.

The revival of the Fukche airfield also means that the Indian military is beefing up its resources along the border with China since the cabinet committee on security revised a policy in July 2006. Roads in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal close to the border are being re-laid and/or widened.

The IAF has begun operating its most modern Sukhoi 30 Mki aircraft from Leh and it is preparing to station a squadron of the aircraft in Assam by end-2009. The airbase at Tezpur is being upgraded for the Sukhoi 30Mki.