New Delhi:
India on Tuesday said it has lodged a strong protest with China over a new map claiming India’s territory, the latest irritant in strained ties between the Asian giants.
New Delhi’s protest follows reports in Indian media that Beijing has released an official “standard map” showing the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin Plateau as its official territory.
China claims Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern Himalayas as part of southern Tibet and in April released a map renaming 11 places in the state as “Zhangnan”, or Southern Tibet in Chinese.
Aksai Chin is a disputed plateau in the western Himalayas that is claimed by India but controlled by China.
“We have today lodged a strong protest through diplomatic channels with the Chinese side on the so-called 2023 ‘standard map’ of China, which claims India’s territory,” said an Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson.
“We reject these claims as they have no basis. Such moves by the Chinese side only complicate the resolution of the boundary question,” he said.
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Earlier on Tuesday, India’s Foreign Minister Subramaniam Jaishankar had rejected China’s territorial claims.
“Making absurd claims on India’s territory does not make it China’s territory,” Jaishankar told news channel NDTV.
New Delhi’s protest comes days after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg last week and raised concerns about the standoff on their disputed Himalayan border.
Relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors deteriorated in June 2020 after a skirmish between troops from both sides in the Himalayas resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers.
Although the situation along the nearly 3,000 km (1,860 mi) border has since calmed down, face-offs continue in some areas with thousands of troops building up on both sides of the border in the western Himalayas.
