China includes Arunachal, Aksai Chin in new ‘map’

China on Monday claimed ownership of Arunachal Pradesh – which Beijing calls South Tibet – and Aksai Chin – occupied during the 1962 war – in the 2023 edition of its ‘standard map’.

The Indian government has yet to react to this controversial move, which is sandwiched between the G20 Summit in New Delhi next weekend and last week’s “informal conversation” between China’s Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS Summit in South Africa.

The Prime Minister had then conveyed to Mr Jinping India’s “concerns over unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and other areas along the India-China border”.

The map also shows other disputed areas – Taiwan and large parts of the South China Sea – as part of China’s territories. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei have all claims over the latter.

According to a Chinese daily, the map was released by that country’s Ministry of Natural Resources during celebrations for Surveying and Mapping Publicity Day and the National Mapping Awareness Publicity Week. China’s Global Times posted the map on X (formerly Twitter) and said it had been compiled based on “drawing method of national boundaries of China and various (other) countries”.

The Chinese ministry’s chief planner, Wu Wenzhong, was quoted as saying “surveying, mapping and geographic information play an important role in boosting development of nation, meeting needs of all life, supporting management of natural resources, and helping construction of ecology and civilization”.

In April the Indian government rejected China’s bid to rename 11 locations within Arunachal Pradesh, which it also calls ‘Zangnan’ – the third time Beijing has attempted such an egregious move after 2018 and 2021 – and asserted the northeastern state has been and will always be an integral part of India.

The list of places ‘renamed’ included five mountain peaks, two residential areas and two rivers.

“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright,” Arindam Bagchi said, adding, “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality.”

Indian and Chinese troops clashed along the LAC in the state’s Tawang sector in December last year – a face-off that came amid a months-long border standoff in eastern Ladakh that prompted Delhi to bolster overall military readiness along the LAC in the Arunachal Pradesh sector as well.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had then accused China of trying to “unilaterally” change the status quo along the LAC and, last month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the situation along the LAC in eastern Ladakh remains “very fragile” and “quite dangerous”.

With inputs from NDTV

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