[ad_1] India has reacted with fury after China released a controversial new map appearing to claim parts of India’s territory as its own. On Monday,
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India has reacted with fury after China released a controversial new map appearing to claim parts of India’s territory as its own.
On Monday, Beijing shared the “standard map” which presented the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin plateau as Chinese land.
“The 2023 edition of China’s standard map was officially released on Monday and launched on the website of the standard map service hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources,” Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times posted on Twitter.
Arunachal Pradesh is located in the eastern Himalayas, and China claims it is part of southern Tibet, while Aksai Chin is a contested plateau in the western Himalayas which is claimed by India but controlled by China.
“This map is compiled based on the drawing method of national boundaries of China and various countries in the world.”
Soon after the map’s release, India came out swinging, with government spokesman Shri Arindam Bagchi condemning the move in an official statement.
“We have today lodged a strong protest through diplomatic channels with the Chinese side on the so called ‘standard map’ of China that lays claim to India’s territory,” he said.
“We reject these claims as they have no basis.
“Such steps by the Chinese side only complicate the resolution of the boundary question.”
India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also hit out at China’s bold move.
“Making absurd claims on India’s territory does not make it China’s territory,” Jaishankar told news channel NDTV.
The map also laid claim to the island of Taiwan and a large part of the South China Sea.
While China releases an updated map annually, the timing of the 2023 version is especially contentious, coming just days ahead of the G-20 summit which will be held in New Delhi on September 9-10, and which Chinese president Xi Jinping is expected to attend.
It also comes hot on the heels of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg last week, during which Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the ongoing territorial dispute.
In a statement issued a day later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the two leaders “had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on current China-India relations”.
“The two sides should bear in mind the overall interests of their bilateral relations and handle properly the border issue so as to jointly safeguard peace and tranquillity in the border region,” the statement said.
The disputed border
The two nations have been locked in a bitter border dispute for decades, after China and India fought a border war in 1962.
Since then, there have been various agreements to keep peace along the Line of Actual Control – the de facto border between the two countries – but the area remains highly volatile.
In fact, disturbing footage emerged in January this year of a violent clash between Chinese and Indian troops at the disputed Himalayan border, which is believed to have taken place several months earlier in September 2021.
The incident was filmed in the mountainous Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh at the Line of Actual Control.
The two countries blame each other for the increased tensions and each has poured tens of thousands of extra troops into border zones.
Tensions also escalated in 2020 after a border clash which resulted in soldiers on both sides being wounded in hand-to-hand combat along the border of Bhutan, Tibet and Nepal.
Five Indian and 20 Chinese soldiers were reportedly injured at the time.
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that relations between the neighbours had been “significantly damaged” by the repeated skirmishes leading to the clash.
– with Chloe Whelan
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