China’s release of a new official map claiming Arunachal Pradesh is a clear signal it does not intend to restore the April 2020 status quo in eastern Ladakh, where it is estimated to have occupied around 2,000sqkm over the past three years, military veterans said on Tuesday.
On Monday, Beijing released the 2023 edition of its “standard map” showing the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, the disputed South China Sea, and the Aksai Chin region occupied by it in the 1962 war as Chinese territory.
“The latest move by China, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, clearly suggests that the Chinese army is in no mood to restore the status quo in Ladakh,” a former lieutenant general told The Telegraph.
“Instead, they now want to establish a new status quo along the frontier in the eastern sector by staking claim over Arunachal Pradesh,” he said.
India on Tuesday said it had “lodged a strong protest through diplomatic channels with the Chinese side on the so-called 2023 ‘standard map’ of China that lays claim to India’s territory”.
“We reject these claims as they have no basis. Such steps by the Chinese side only complicate the resolution of the boundary question,” external affairs ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in response to journalists’ questions.
No details were given about the level at which the protest was lodged. While India regularly summons Pakistan diplomats over such provocations, there is no public record of New Delhi summoning Chinese diplomats in recent years, not even after 20 Indian soldiers were killed by the Chinese at Galwan in Ladakh in June 2020.
“What an effete and weak response. We must break Diplomatic Relations with China even if it means hurting Adani’s business with China. Close down China’s trawler base in Southern Gujarat,” BJP leader and former MP Subramanian Swamy tweeted on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Modi had said after the Galwan killings that no one had entered or occupied Indian territory.
Former army chief Gen Ved Malik said in a tweet on Tuesday that the release of the map was an indication that Beijing had no intention to resolve the boundary dispute.
“Release of a new official map by China with territorial claim on Arunachal Pradesh is an indication that China has no intention to resolve the boundary dispute…. Shouldn’t India declare the old status of Tibet and drop ‘one China’ policy?” asked Malik, who was the army chief during the 1999 Kargil War.
A retired brigadier said the Chinese army continued to occupy Indian territory in Ladakh despite New Delhi’s claims that Modi and Xi during talks last week agreed to “direct their relevant officials to intensify efforts at expeditious disengagement and de-escalation” of troops along the Line of Actual Control there.
The Chinese readout on the conversation had no mention of this, he underlined.
“The two varying readouts put out by Delhi and Beijing after the talks suggested that the Chinese army has shown no intention to restore the April 2020 status quo in the region. On the ground, the Chinese continue to occupy our land in Ladakh,” the former brigadier said.
China in its readout said that “President Xi Jinping talked with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit at the latter’s request on August 23, 2023”.
The release of the new map is the latest provocation by Beijing, the retired brigadier added. “It is now very evident that not only do they want to hold on to the new status quo as created by them in eastern Ladakh, but they also seek to establish a new status quo in the eastern sector (Arunachal Pradesh-Sikkim),” he said.
Sources in India’s defence ministry said the map by China was in line with Beijing's aggressiveness over the past year.
“We have been noticing aggressive military assertiveness of the People’s Liberation Army in the eastern sector over the past one year. They have been coming increasingly deeper into our territory with the aim of staking claim to disputed areas which had also resulted in a physical clash between the two sides in December last year,” said a ministry official.
In December, a clash between the troops of the two countries at 17,000 feet in Yangtze, 35km northeast of Tawang in western Arunachal Pradesh, had left 15 to 20 Indian soldiers injured. The clash occurred after more than 500 Chinese troops crossed the LAC and began vandalising Indian military posts.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh had then told Parliament that Chinese soldiers tried to “transgress” the Line of Actual Control and “unilaterally change the status quo” at Yangtze in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh but their attempt was foiled by the Indian Army.
Of the 3,488km Line of Actual Control, an undemarcated border, a stretch of 1,346km falls in the eastern sector. China lays claim to 90,000sqkm of Indian territory in the eastern sector, including practically the whole of Arunachal.
