NEW DELHI: While efforts are afoot to normalise Indo-China relations, the ground reality is far from normal.

At a time when news of India's solar manufacturing may get VGF support to cut Chinese imports or Union Minister Nitin Gadkari snubbing China on road construction deals are making headlines, some of India's key projects are either being run by or have crucial links with companies that have deep connections with China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Sources close to the government said that one of the top projects is going on in Karnataka. Considered as one of the largest joint ventures between India and China, Xindia Steels Ltd has recently commissioned a 0.8 mtpa iron ore pelletisation facility in Karnataka's Koppal district, adjacent to Hospet, at a total cost of slightly over Rs 250 crore.

However, its main investor is Xinxing Cathay International Group Co. Ltd. (China), which as per its website, is "reorganised, reconstructed and unhooked from the previous production department and subordinate enterprises and institutions of the General Logistics Department of the PLA".

The same PLA, which engaged into a violent clash with the Indian Army soldiers in eastern Ladakh last month, resulting in the killing of 20 Indian bravehearts.

The company that powers the Hospet project is "under the supervision" of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council in China (SASAC).

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. There is another project in Andhra Pradesh which too raises security issues in view of the current scenario. China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) had announced a multi-million dollar investment in a 200 MW PV manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh's Sri City in 2018.

CETC is China's leading military lectronics manufacturer and also makes Hikvision CCTV cameras. It is known as China's surveillance czar that identifies Xinjiang's 11 million Muslim Uighurs through facial recognition and unleashes a state sponsored suppression.

Washington has long banned government agencies from buying Hikvision products. Several CETC research institutes and subsidiaries have been added to the US government's list, restricting exports to them on national security grounds.

Huawei is being ostracised in many countries in key telecom projects. It was Ren Zhengfei, a former deputy director of the People's Liberation Army engineering corps, who had founded Huawei in 1987 in Shenzhen.

Huawei is a popular brand in India with a reported revenue of Rs 12,800 crore in 2018-19 from its Indian operations. But due to security concerns, the company has been kept out of the 5G race in many countries.