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BEIJING: A Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson on Thursday said that China had never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh and dismissed the Indian objection over development and construction activities in the Chinese territory.
“China’s position on Zangnan region (South Tibet) is consistent and clear. We never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh,” Hua Chunying said during her regular briefing in response to a question about building of new villages in South Tibet.
The spokesperson remarked that China’s development and construction activities within its own territory are normal and added, “This is beyond reproach as it is in our territory.” India NDTV reported this week that China built a village in the so-called “Arunachal Pradesh,” which China calls South Tibet or Zangnan. Using satellite images, it claimed that the village is located on the banks of the River Tsari Chu, which lies in the “disputed area”.
India claims this area is its territory, but the Chinese government has never recognized the so-called “Arunachal Pradesh.”
Meanwhile, Zhang Yongpan, a research fellow of the Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said that the Indian media reports were a blatant attempt to stir up troubles on the China-India border.
He said that the report distorts facts, which jeopardizes the two countries’ efforts to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.
So-called “Arunachal Pradesh” was founded illegally in the last century and occupies about 90,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory.
The area has never been recognized by the Chinese government and Chinese ethnic minority groups such as the Moinba, the Lhoba and Tibetan people live in the area.
Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that he suspects it is another move by Indian media to hype anti-China sentiment.
“China and India haven’t demarcated the border line of this area yet. So they cannot accuse China of building a village on the Indian side,” he added.
Echoing Qian, CASS research fellow Zhang stressed the McMahon Line in the eastern section was even more without legal basis.
The Chinese government has never recognized this line, Zhang said. “It’s absurd for the Indian government to use this line to determine the territory administered by China and India. Indian media should not bring about the issue when the country is still plagued by the serious situation of a COVID-19 pandemic.”
