India warns of suitable response after China issues 'stapled visas' to sportspersons from Arunachal

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India has already lodged its 'strong protest' with the Chinese side on the matter.

After Beijing issued ‘stapled visas’ to three sportspersons from Arunachal Pradesh of India for visiting China to participate in the World University Games, New Delhi on Thursday lodged a strong protest and asserted that it reserved the right to “suitably respond” to the “unacceptable” move by the communist nation.

New Delhi put on hold the departure of India’s wushu team that was to leave for Chengdu in China early on Thursday to take part in the World University Games. The team had four officials and eight wushu players, including three from Arunachal Pradesh, Nyeman Wangsu, Onilu Tega and Mepung Lamgu, who had been issued ‘stapled visas’ by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in New Delhi.

Beijing issued the ‘stapled visas’, instead of the normal visas pasted on passports, to the players from Arunachal Pradesh in order to avoid acknowledging them as citizens of India and recognizing the state they belonged to as a part of India.

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“It has come to our notice that stapled visas were issued to some of our citizens representing the country in an international sporting event in China,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists in New Delhi. “This is unacceptable and we have lodged our strong protest with the Chinese side reiterating our consistent position on the matter and India reserves the right to suitably respond to such actions.”

China claims nearly 90,000 sq km of area in Arunachal Pradesh of India and calls it Zangnan or south Tibet. New Delhi, however, rejects China’s claim and says that the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

“Our long-standing and consistent position is that there should be no discrimination or differential treatment on the basis of domicile or ethnicity in the visa regime for Indian citizens holding valid Indian passports,” Bagchi, the MEA spokesperson, told journalists.

Not only for the people of Arunachal Pradesh, but China has also been issuing ‘stapled visas’ to the citizens of India living in Ladakh as well as Jammu and Kashmir, apparently to make it a point that it does not recognize the two union territories as an integral part of India.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in New Delhi in August 2019 had stripped J&K of its special status and moved to reorganise the erstwhile state into two union territories, China had joined Pakistan to launch a global campaign against India, protesting against what they had called a unilateral move on disputed territory.

India claims that China is illegally occupying about 38,000 sq km of its territory in Aksai Chin, which borders eastern Ladakh.

Pakistan ceded to China about 5,180 sq km of Indian territory in 1963. China also claims nearly 2000 sq km of land in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand of India.

Though the departure of the wushu team was put on hold, India’s teams for other sports already reached Chengdu in China to take part in the World University Games, which is being hosted by the communist nation.

New Delhi on Thursday did not elaborate on the measures it might take to respond to the latest move by Beijing to assert its territorial claims.

A similar move by Beijing to issue ‘stapled visas’ to people living in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and J&K of India in 2010 had prompted New Delhi to drop words of its support to China’s stand on Tibet and Taiwan from the joint communiqué issued after the parleys between the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

India had earlier been routinely recognising Tibet Autonomous Region as an integral part of China in all the joint declarations and other bilateral documents. India had also been routinely reaffirming its One-China policy, thus not recognizing the Republic of China or Taiwan as a separate nation other than the People’s Republic of China.

China, however, continued to issue ‘stapled visas’ to people living in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and J&K of India. An official of the Indian Weightlifting Federation and a weightlifter from Arunachal Pradesh could not travel to China in 2011 to take part in a grand prix event as the ‘stapled visa’ issued to them by the communist nation’s consular officials in New Delhi had not been recognised by India. Five karate players and two young archers from Arunachal Pradesh also could not participate in international championships in the neighbouring country for the same reason the same year itself.

The latest irritant in New Delhi’s relations with Beijing has come up even as the stand-off between soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh has not yet been completely resolved, even as more than three years have passed since it started in April-May 2020 and reached a flashpoint with a violent face-off in Galwan Valley on June 15, 2020.

Apart from the aggressive deployment of PLA troops along the China-India de facto boundary, China has been resorting to several other ways to assert its claims on territories of India – be it by issuing ‘stapled visas’ to people living in J&K, Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh, or by showing those areas as its territory in maps or by assigning Chinese and Tibetan names to areas it has been eyeing.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Chinese Government had earlier this year renamed 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh in Mandarin and Tibetan languages. It had earlier renamed six places in the state in Mandarin and Tibetan in April 2017 and 15 more places in December 2021. The move had obviously been aimed at buttressing Beijing’s claim on Arunachal Pradesh and hence triggered protests from New Delhi.

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. They had the 22nd round of boundary negotiation in December 2019. The process remained stalled since the military stand-off along the LAC started in April-May 2020.