Photo : Collected
The Indian foreign ministry dismissed on Tuesday (12 March) a warning by China that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to a contested Himalayan border region would only complicate things between the two neighbors.
Modi traveled last week to the sparsely populated mountainous territory, called Arunachal Pradesh by India and South Tibet or Zangnan by China, in order to inaugurate a mountain tunnel and other projects aimed at linking the hard-to-reach area to mainland India.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday that Beijing deplored Modi’s efforts to "arbitrarily develop" the region, which he warned "will only complicate the boundary question and disrupt the situation in the border areas between the two countries."
"We reject the comments made by the Chinese side regarding the visit of the Prime Minister to Arunachal Pradesh … Objecting to such visits or India's developmental projects does not stand to reason," Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response to media queries.
China’s objections would not change India’s perception of the region as its "integral and inalienable part," Jaiswal added.
India and China have been embroiled in several disputes over the land stretching along their 2,200-mile border, most notably over the Himalayan territory of Ladakh, which is also claimed in part by Pakistan. India and China fought a war over the region in 1962 followed by a deadly flare-up in 2020.
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