Army trucks move towards Leh
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: China has over the past few years brushed aside protests by India and pulled out all the stops to turn in its favour the only agreement that came out of the protracted boundary negotiations by their special representatives since 2003 – a process the leaders of the two nations recently revived.
Construction of new settlements along the disputed boundary, enacting new land boundary law, issuing new maps showing territories of India as parts of China, renaming areas in India but claimed by China in Mandarin Chinese and Tibetan languages – Beijing resorted to many non-military measures in the past few years to lay the ground for challenging New Delhi’s territorial claims, including taking advantage of the 2005 agreement on “Political Parameters and Guiding Principles” for the settlement of the dispute over the boundary between the two nations.
New Delhi protested, but Beijing did not relent and continued with the series of non-military measures to assert its expansive territorial claims, even as the military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the de facto boundary between the two nations – continued in eastern Ladakh.
As the military stand-off along the LAC ended last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had their first bilateral meeting in five years on the sideline of the BRICS summit at Kazan in Russia. They decided that India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the special representatives of the two nations for boundary negotiations, would meet soon to restart the stalled dialogue to explore “a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable solution” to the territorial dispute.
New Delhi, however, remains concerned over the implications of the series of non-military moves China initiated over the past few years to assert and buttress its claims over territories in India, a source aware of the boundary negotiations between the two governments told DH.
China’s moves along its disputed boundary with India over the past four years undermined the progress made by the Special Representatives in 22 rounds of negotiations between October 2003 and December 2019, another source in New Delhi said.
Beijing enforced a new land border law on January 1, 2022. The law emphasised the role of the citizens, particularly people living in the border areas, and the civilian institutions in supporting the PLA and the People’s Armed Police Force, which were entrusted with “guarding land borders and resisting armed aggression”.
The emphasis on developing villages and towns in the border areas and the role of civilians in protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity is consistent with China’s move to expand settlements all along its disputed boundaries with India and Bhutan.
There have been multiple reports about China building villages in areas it illegally occupied in Bhutan as well as along its disputed boundary with India, not only in eastern Ladakh but also in Arunachal Pradesh.
The new law was a move to legitimise China’s use of the civilian settlement to buttress its territorial claims along its disputed boundaries with India and Bhutan.
The Special Representatives of India and China had started talks to resolve the boundary dispute in 2003. They reached an agreement in 2005 on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Question.
Article V of the 2005 agreement says that the two sides would take into account, historical evidence, national sentiments, practical difficulties, reasonable concerns and sensitivities of both sides, and the actual state of border areas. Article VII of the agreement says that the two sides would safeguard the interests of the settled populations in the border areas while settling the boundary row.
China may cite its official records of old and new border settlements with Tibetan and Mandarin Chinese names as well as its new law to counter the territorial claims of India.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Chinese Government on March 31 this year “standardized” in Mandarin Chinese characters as well as in Tibetan and Roman alphabets the names of the 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh. China had earlier renamed six places in the northeastern state of India in Mandarin and Tibetan in April 2017, 15 more places in December 2021, and 11 more places in April 2023. New Delhi rejected Beijing’s move outrightly, calling it ‘senseless’. It conveyed to China that assigning invented names would not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, had been, and would always be an integral and inalienable part of India.
New Delhi also expressed concern over China’s new land border law, particularly its provisions that empowered President Xi Jinping’s government to reorganize the districts in the border areas, including the ones along the country’s disputed boundary with India.
“It may be noted that India and China have still not resolved the boundary question. Both sides have agreed to seek a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable resolution to the boundary question through consultations on an equal footing,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement in New Delhi in October 2021. “We have also concluded several bilateral agreements, protocols, and arrangements to maintain peace and tranquillity along the LAC in India-China border areas in the interim.”
New Delhi stated that China’s unilateral decision to enforce such a law could have implications for existing India-China bilateral arrangements on border management as well as on the boundary question. Such a unilateral move would have no bearing on the arrangements that both sides have already reached earlier, whether it is on the boundary question or for maintaining peace and tranquillity along the LAC in India-China Border areas, it said adding that India would expect that China would avoid undertaking action under the pretext of this law which could unilaterally alter the situation in the India-China border areas.
“Furthermore,” a spokesperson of the MEA in New Delhi added, “the passage of this new law does not in our view confer any legitimacy to the so-called China-Pakistan ‘boundary agreement’ of 1963, which the Government of India has consistently maintained is an illegal and invalid agreement.”
New Delhi claims that China is illegally occupying about 38,000 sq. km of India’s territory in Aksai Chin, which borders eastern Ladakh. Pakistan also ceded to China about 5,180 sq. km of India’s territory in Saksgam Valley in 1963. Beijing claims 90000 sq. km of areas in Arunachal Pradesh of India as part of the territory of China and calls it Zangnan or south Tibet.
Beijing also claims a 2,000 sq. km area in the Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand state of India.
New Delhi in August 2023 lodged a strong protest with Beijing through diplomatic channels over the 2023 ‘standard map’ of China that laid claim to India's territory. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had dismissed China’s move to reassert its claim on territories of India as ‘absurd’.
The Indian Army’s response to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s aggressive moves to push the LAC westward in April-May 2020 resulted in a military stand-off along the de facto boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh. After the two sides recently worked out an agreement to put in place arrangements for patrolling by the soldiers of the two nations in Depsang and Demchok, the last two remaining face-off points, India declared that it marked the end of the four-and-a-half-year-long stand-off along its LAC with China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had their first formal bilateral meeting at Kazan in Russia on the sideline of the BRICS summit last week and they decided that the Special Representatives of the two governments would “meet at an early date to oversee the management of peace and tranquillity in border areas and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.
But, even as the dialogue between the special representatives starts soon, India is bracing to resist China’s attempt to take undue advantage of the 2005 agreement by citing either its newly constructed villages along the LAC, or its new laws and new maps, or its records showing Mandarin Chinese or Tibetan names to places in India.