MEA reaffirms Arunachal Pradesh as integral part of India, rejects China’s claims

MEA reaffirms Arunachal Pradesh as integral part of India, rejects China's claims, calls them absurd and baseless.

Days after the Chinese military reiterated its claim over Arunachal Pradesh, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on March 19 said, “Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”

“We have noted comments by Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson advancing absurd claims over territory of Arunachal Pradesh. Repeating baseless arguments doesn’t lend such claims any validity,” he said.

The Chinese military on Sunday called the area an “inherent part of China’s territory”, days after India rejected Beijing’s objection to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the State.

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The Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang said that the southern part of Xizang (the Chinese name for Tibet) is an inherent part of China’s territory, and Beijing “never acknowledges and firmly opposes” the “so-called Arunachal Pradesh illegally established by India”, official media reported.

China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, routinely objects to Indian leaders’ visits to the State to highlight its claims. Beijing has also named the area as Zangnan.

India has repeatedly rejected China’s territorial claims over Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that the State is an integral part of the country. New Delhi has also dismissed Beijing’s move to assign “invented” names to the area, saying it did not alter the reality.