PLA faces flak over swift evacuation by India

The Indian military's swift evacuation of thousands of Indians from quake-hit Nepal has put China's PLA on the defensive with questions raised as to why its efforts to rescue stranded Chinese nationals did not match that of India.

The media here has questioned why air force planes were not deployed to airlift over 8,000 Chinese many of whom are still stranded in Nepal.

In a rare comparison of India's military with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the world's largest, Chinese defence spokesman Geng Yansheng was on Thursday confronted with the question at a briefing as to why the military did not use planes to airlift stranded Chinese when India had done so to ferry its nationals. There is considerable annoyance in China over the slow process of airlifting of Chinese tourists as well as workers employed in various Beijing-funded projects in Nepal as the task was given to a number of civilian airlines.  There were also reports of some of the airline companies demanding heavy fare which was subsequently denied.  Besides airlifting thousands of its citizens, the Indian Air Force also transported about 170 foreign nationals from 15 countries to India. Several others were also transported through special buses from across the border to Bihar.