JOIN USPM will visit Arunachal again, India tells irate China
Beijing has protested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, prompting New Delhi to give a quick riposte and vow that he would visit the frontier state again.
Hours after prime minister attended the “statehood day” ceremony in Arunachal Pradesh on Friday, Beijing came out with a strong statement, saying that Modi’s visit to the State ran counter to efforts by India and China to resolve the boundary dispute.
New Delhi’s envoy to Beijing, Ashok Kantha, was called in to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chinese Government for a meeting with the communist country’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin.
According to a report by China’s state-run news-agency Xinhua, Liu expressed “strong dissatisfaction and staunch opposition’ to the Indian side’s insistence on arranging the visit by its leader to the disputed area on China-India border.” Liu also told Kantha that Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh “undermined China's territorial sovereignty, right and interests.”
The Xinhua also reported that the Embassy of China in New Delhi had lodged protests with the Indian Government’s Ministry of External Affairs on prime minister’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh.
New Delhi reacted on Saturday, pointing out that the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh was an integral part of India and none could stop prime minister of India to travel to the State.
“Why should someone (China) have problem with prime minister visiting any part of his country?” Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, said after Beijing publicly opposed Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh. “He will visit (Arunachal Pradesh) again,” he added.
The war of words brought the focus on India-China dispute over Arunachal Pradesh just when Special Representatives of the two countries are set to restart boundary negotiations with a meeting in Beijing.
“China holds a consistent and clear stance on the China-India boundary question. It is a fact known to all that there are substantial disputes over the eastern part of the China-India boundary,” Hua Chunying, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Government, told journalists in Beijing after Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh.
“The Chinese government has never recognised Arunachal Pradesh,” she noted, in an apparent bid to underline that Beijing had not yet budged from its claim on the northeastern Indian State.
“What the Indian side has done runs counter to the efforts by the two sides to properly resolve disputes and the overall interests of bilateral relations,” said Hua.
With just days to go before Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is scheduled to meet Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi in Beijing and restart the boundary negotiation after a year-long hiatus, Beijing also demanded that New Delhi should “commit itself to fairly and properly resolving” the dispute “through negotiation”.