March 26, 2019
China reaffirms claim over Indian-state of Arunachal Pradesh
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali -
China has reaffirmed its territorial claim over Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh by destroying 30,000 world maps printed in the country for not mentioning Arunachal Pradesh as part of its territory.
The destroyed maps also did not mention Taiwan as part of Chinese territory.
Like Taiwan, China claims the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet.
India says the State of Arunachal Pradesh is its integral and inalienable part and Indian leaders visit Arunachal Pradesh from time to time, as they visit other parts of the country.
The two countries have so far held 21 rounds of talks to resolve the border dispute covering 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC).
China also routinely objects to Indian leaders visiting Arunachal Pradesh to highlight its stand.
On February 9, 2019, China expressed its opposition to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh where he laid the foundation stone for a new airport.
Beijing’s position on the issue has been “consistent and clear”, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
“The Chinese government has never recognized the so-called Arunachal Pradesh and is firmly opposed to the Indian leader’s visit to the eastern section of the Sino-Indian border.”
India should “take into consideration the two countries’ relations, respect Chinese interests and concerns, cherish the momentum of improving relations, and not take any actions that will complicate the border dispute”, she said.
Modi laid the foundation stone for a new airport development at Hollongi in the region’s Parum Pare district during a two-day tour of northeast India.
New Delhi considers Arunachal Pradesh as an Indian state, but Beijing claims a large part of it as South Tibet. The region was at the centre of the fighting during the 1962 war between the two Asian giants.
Modi said that his government had put the region “on a fast track to development” and was planning the development of a number of infrastructure projects in the region, including the airport, and road and rail facilities.
Once operational, Hollongi Airport, which is being developed on a greenfield site, will have a 2.2km (1.4 mile) runway and provide direct flights to several major Indian cities. The project has been in the pipeline since 2007 but controversy and debate over site selection have hampered its progress.
Tensions between Delhi and Beijing have been on the rise in Arunachal Pradesh since late December 2018 when Chinese construction workers were spotted building roads in its Upper Siang district. The workers pulled back when Indian troops moved in.
Although military leaders from the two sides held a meeting to debate the issue, according to a report by India Today, the dispute has sparked concerns that they might be heading for a repeat of their 73-day stand-off on the Doklam plateau in the summer of 2017.
That too began with a row over China’s construction of a road in an area of the Himalayas that borders China, India and Bhutan.
Modi’s visit in February 2018
Similarly, in February 2018, China vehemently opposed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Arunachal Pradesh and urged India to refrain from taking any action that may "complicate" the boundary question.
Reacting sharply to Prime Minister Modi's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said China would lodge a "stern" diplomatic protest with India. "China's position on the China-India boundary question is consistent and clear-cut," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang in response to reports that Modi visited Arunachal Pradesh.
"The Chinese government has never recognized the so-called Arunachal Pradesh and is firmly opposed to the Indian leader's visit to the disputed area," Geng was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency. "We will lodge stern representations with the Indian side," he said.
Geng said that China and India had reached important consensus on properly managing disputes, and the two sides were working to resolve the territorial disputes through negotiation and consultation. "The Chinese side urges the Indian side to honor its commitment and abide by the relevant consensus, and refrain from taking any action that may complicate the boundary question," Geng said.
"(These three areas) located between the illegal 'McMahon Line' and the traditional customary boundary between China and India, have always been Chinese territory," he said adding, the 'McMahon Line' drawn by Britain in 1914 was an attempt to incorporate the areas into Indian territory.
He urged India to cherish the hard-won momentum of improvements in bilateral relations and create enabling conditions for the boundary talks and the development of bilateral relations.
China had objected to the then US Ambassador to India Richard Verma's visit to Arunachal Pradesh in October 2017.
Commenting on the Sino-Indian land boundary dispute, Aakriti Bachhawat, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said that the Sino-Indian land boundary dispute is likely to remain a source of low-level friction and antagonism between the two Asian giants.
“Negotiations and confidence-building measures have yielded little in over the past several years. China is likely to continue testing India’s will and vulnerabilities and gain an advantage where it can,” he said adding: “As we see with Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, India is likely to continue to assert its sovereignty and protect its land borders while managing tensions in other areas of the relationship with China. The danger lies in either side miscalculating the other’s motivation, resolve and patience.”
Aakriti Bachhawat argues that despite the ‘reset’ in the Sino-Indian relationship said to be in place since the April 2018 Wuhan summit between Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the fact that India is careful to avoid trampling Chinese sensitivities elsewhere, such as on its position on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, New Delhi isn’t refraining from behaving assertively where its core interests are concerned. “In other words, the reset hasn’t brought a fundamental change in the relationship and is better viewed as an attempt at buying temporary peace.”
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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