China releases third list of names for places in Arunachal Pradesh: What is the strategy behind this?
Context- Just two days after the Chinese government released a list of “standardized” names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian authorities on Tuesday (April 4) said they rejected the move “outright”. In a statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi categorically stated that “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always” be an integral part of India.
This isn’t the first time that China has done something like this. It released two different sets of “standardised” names of places in Arunachal Pradesh back in 2017 and 2021.
Why is China giving names to places that are in India?
- China claims some 90,000 sq km of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory. It calls the area “Zangnan” in the Chinese language and makes repeated references to “South Tibet”. Chinese maps show Arunachal Pradesh as part of China, and sometimes parenthetically refer to it as “so-called Arunachal Pradesh”.
- China makes periodic efforts to underline this unilateral claim to Indian territory. Giving Chinese names to places in Arunachal Pradesh is part of that effort.
What is China’s argument for claiming these areas?
- The People’s Republic of China disputes the legal status of the McMahon Line, the boundary between Tibet and British India that was agreed at the Simla Convention — officially the ‘Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet’ — of 1914.
- China was represented at the Simla Convention by a plenipotentiary of the Republic of China, which had been declared in 1912 after the Qing dynasty was overthrown. (The present communist government came to power only in 1949, when the People’s Republic was proclaimed.)
- The Chinese representative did not consent to the Simla Convention, saying Tibet had no independent authority to enter into international agreements.
- The McMohan Line, named after Henry McMahon, the chief British negotiator at Shimla, was drawn from the eastern border of Bhutan to the Isu Razi pass on the China-Myanmar border. China claims territory to the south of the McMahon Line, lying in Arunachal Pradesh
- China also bases its claims on the historical ties that have existed between the monasteries in Tawang and Lhasa.
What does China seek to gain from making these claims?
- As stated earlier, it is a part of the Chinese strategy to assert its territorial claims over Indian territory. As part of this strategy, China routinely issues statements of outrage whenever an Indian dignitary visits Arunachal Pradesh.
- Beijing keeps harping on its “consistent” and “clear” position that the Indian possession of Arunachal Pradesh, though firmly established and recognised by the world, is “illegal”, and asks New Delhi to stop taking actions to “complicate” the border issue.
- The “first batch” of renaming in 2017 had come days after the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh, against which Beijing had lodged a strong protest. Spokesperson Lu had, however, claimed that the “standardisation” was necessary since all names used in “southern Tibet” were inherited through word-of-mouth for generations by minority ethnic groups.
- “These names reflect and indicate from one aspect, that China’s proposal on the sovereignty claim of South Tibet region has a prominent historical, cultural, administrative and jurisdictional basis,” Lu had said.
- Laying aggressive claims to territories on the basis of alleged historical injustices done to China is a part of Beijing’s foreign policy playbook.
Conclusion- The aggression is at all times backed in overt and covert ways by the use of China’s economic and military muscle. India needs to work on filling the gap by focusing on economic growth.
Syllabus- GS-2; International Relations
Source- Indian Express
