DHARAMSHALA, August 31: Ahead of Chinese Defence Minister’s visit to India, New Delhi reasserted Thursday its claim over the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China “illegally” refers to as southern Tibet.
The upper house of the Indian parliament, Rajya Sabah, was informed by Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed that China “illegally” refers to Arunachal Pradesh as south Tibet and claims around 90,000 sq km of Indian territory there.
“China disputes the international boundary between India and China in the eastern sector and claims approximately 90,000 sq km of Indian territory in the state of Arunachal Pradesh,” the Minister said responding to a question by Rajya Sabha BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad.
“The fact that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India has been clearly conveyed to the Chinese side,” Ahamed added.
General Liang Guanglie will be the first Chinese defence minister to visit India in seven years when he lands in Mumbai on September 2 for a three-day visit. The two sides are expected to discuss ways of strengthening defence ties at a time when the Himalayas is seeing a build up of infrastructure and weapons on both sides.
This year alone, China conducted at least three military exercises on the Tibetan plateau. In July, the People’s Liberation Army test fired three new surface-to-air missiles in Tibet, tailor-made for operations in the plateau’s high altitude terrain and rarefied atmosphere. PLA said that the exercise was targeted at enemy aircrafts from the “south-east” direction – an obvious reference to India.
This was followed by a live missile firing exercise inside Tibet conducted by Chinese air force J-11 aircraft on August 10.
Earlier this week, China announced the test-firing a new generation inter-continental ballistic missile called Dongfeng-41, capable of carrying up to 10 nuclear warheads within a strike range of 14,000 kilometers.
India’s Defence Minister A.K. Antony recently told Parliament that the government was regularly monitoring all developments in the region while responding to queries on infrastructure-building by China along the border.
“Required measures have been initiated through development of infrastructure and operational capabilities to achieve desired levels of defence preparedness to safeguard the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of India,” he said in a written reply.
Srikanth Kondapalli, Chairman of the Centre for East Asian Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University told The Hindu that the PLA has held “at least 21 exercises” in the Tibet region over the past one-and-half years, all designed for “specific scenarios.”
“These exercises also convey to India that they are gearing preparations in high altitude conditions. China wants to convey that it is testing and strengthening its conventional deterrents and enhancing military capability in hostile territory,” Kondapalli said.
India and China occupied Tibet share a 3488 km long disputed border which was the cause of a short but bloody war in 1962. Since then, the two Asian giants have shared uneasy military ties with a series of border talks failing to yield much result.
