The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday rejected the US’s remarks on Arunachal Pradesh, saying the boundary issue between New Delhi and Beijing was a bilateral matter and that it had “nothing to do with the US”, Reuters reported.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, at a media conference, said: “Delimitation of the China-India boundary has never been completed… Everyone knows that the US has always used indiscriminate means to provoke and use other countries’ disputes to serve its own selfish geopolitical interests.”
On Wednesday, the US said that it recognises Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and strongly opposes any unilateral attempts by China to advance its territorial claims across the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Earlier this week, 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”.
“India has no right to arbitrarily develop the area of Zangnan in China. India’s relevant moves will only complicate the boundary question and disrupt the situation in the border areas between the two countries,” said Wang during the press briefing. China calls Arunachal ‘Zangnan’, or Southern Tibet.
India, on its part, said Chinese objections would not “change the reality". Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, in a statement on March 12, said that Chinese objections would not “change the reality that the state of Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India”.
"Repeating baseless arguments in this regard does not lend such claims any validity. Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Its people will continue to benefit from our development programmes and infrastructure projects," the Ministry said.
On March 9, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Sela Tunnel built at an altitude of 13,000 feet in Arunachal Pradesh that will provide all-weather connectivity to strategically located Tawang and is expected to ensure better movement of troops along the frontier region.
Following this, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that China never recognised the “so-called Arunachal Pradesh illegally set up by India”.