Arunachal Pradesh: India slams China’s claims as “absurd, baseless”
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The External Affairs Ministry (EAM) on Tuesday termed China’s recent claims on Arunachal Pradesh as its territory (“South Tibet”), and reiterated that the northeastern state “was, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal’s comments came two days after China’s Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) claimed that Arunachal Pradesh was an “inherent part of China’s territory”.
Resorting its traditional cartographic tactics as part of its age-old expansionist policy, and to keep the claims open-ended, Beijing also named Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan, the way it has named Eastern Turkestan “Xinjiang.”
“We have noted the comments made by the Spokesperson of the Chinese Defence Ministry advancing absurd claims over the territory of the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh. Repeating baseless arguments in this regard does not lend such claims any validity. Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Its people will continue to benefit from our development programs and infrastructure projects,” he said in a statement.
China has been made aware of this “consistent position” on several occasions, he added.
The PLA’s claims on Sunday came after India rejected Beijing’s objection to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state on March 9.
China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh as “South Tibet”, routinely objects to Indian leaders’ visits to the state to highlight its claims.
India has repeatedly rejected China’s territorial claims over Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that the state is an integral part of the country.
New Delhi has also dismissed Beijing’s move to assign “invented” names to the area, saying it did not alter the reality.
