Indian foreign affairs analysts consider Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks regarding tensions near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to be “extremely significant.”
In response to his comments on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said that India and China should cooperate in order to “put the bilateral relations forward on a sound and stable track.”
In a revealing statement during an interview to Newsweek on Wednesday, Prime Minister Modi expressed the belief that good and stable relations between China and India are crucial for the two nations as well as the entire region and the world.
Conversely, a senior PLA Colonel was recently reported by Hu Xijin, the former editor of Global Times on X (previously Twitter), who said that Zangnan has always been a part of China. He tweeted, “What is the origin of Arunachal Pradesh? The United States wants India to lose badly if a border battle breaks out.”
“The claims (of Arunachal Pradesh) are ludicrous to begin with and remain ludicrous today,” declared EAM S Jaishankar, who is affiliated with the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, in a recent statement.
India had correctly emphasized again how bizarre the scenario is.
China has always been obstinate over Arunachal Pradesh. It has consistently objected to Central politicians visiting Arunachal Pradesh, and it has been unyielding in its stance on issues like stapled visas, place renaming, and infrastructural development in India, including PM Narendra Modi’s opening of the Sela Tunnel. PLA frequently provokes fights by persistently probing beyond the McMahon Line.
In the past month, China has made its claim against Arunachal Pradesh four times, accusing India of illegally occupying the Chinese part. It has been claimed that India established Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese territory in 1987 after illegally occupying it. China has recently done a fourth round of renaming some places in Arunachal Pradesh.It is clear that China’s military operations have an overt and covert agenda and a calculated obfuscation of the facts. Despite this apparent hostility, China’s official position is that the border should enter a normalized phase of monitoring and control.
China disputes Indian mythology where the epics Mahabharata and Kalika Purana refer to the region of Arunachal Pradesh as ancient Vidarbha. The ruins of Rukmini Nat or the palace of Lord Krishna’s wife Rukmini are located in the Ala Dibang Valley. Even the historical records of the 16th century mention the Ahom kings as the rulers of the region and the Assam region.
During British India, the region was called the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA). After independence, NEFA was constitutionally a part of Assam. On 21 January 1972, NEFA became the Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh, random elections were held and in February 1987 it became a Union State. China’s claims about the region are farcical and fabricated.
Apparently, the May 2020 attacks on eastern Ladakh and subsequent investigations in the Tawang sector of the Yangtze River were politically motivated. It is also evident that China’s much intensified rhetoric is not without a hidden goal of wanting to challenge and contain India’s growth curve and emerge as a geopolitical contender in Asia.
