On China releasing a new ‘standard map’ which shows Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin region as its part, Tenzin Lekshay, Spokesperson and Additional Secretary, DIIR, Central Tibetan Administration said that China has been showing such distorted maps since many years, showing Arunachal Pradesh as a part of China.
“This is not the first time China is doing that. China for the last so many years has been repeatedly showing distorted maps which shows Arunachal Pradesh as a part of China,” he said.
However, China has made a baseless claim stating that whole Arunachal is a part of South Tibet.
Lekshay further said, “In fact they used to say that the whole Arunachal is the part of Southern Tibet but this claim is baseless and not based on truth…This is part of sovereign India since independence, there are Indian people and administration and government.”
China has officially released the 2023 edition of its “standard map,” which shows the state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin region as part of its territory.
The map released on August 28 shows Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as South Tibet and Aksai Chin occupied by it in the 1962 war as part of its territory. Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea are also included within the Chinese territory in the new map.
The map was released by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources during the celebration of Surveying and Mapping Publicity Day and the National Mapping Awareness Publicity Week on Monday in Deqing county, Zhejiang province, as per China Daily newspaper.
The map also incorporates China’s claims over the nine-dash line thus laying claim to a large part of the South China Sea.
Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei have all claims over the South China Sea areas.
Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Moreover, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra had said in his conversation with President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Modi highlighted India’s concerns on unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control in the Western Sector of the India-China border areas.
Beijing had in April this year unilaterally “renamed” as many as 11 Indian locations, which included names of mountain peaks, rivers and residential areas.
Previously in 2017 and 2021, China’s Civil Affair Ministry had renamed other Indian locations triggering another political confrontation. New Delhi had then called out China’s expansionist plans then.