New Delhi: Responding to China’s claims in their ‘standard map,’ External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in an interview to NDTV dismissed the claims as a recurring pattern, stating that it is an “old habit” of China to claim control over territories that are not rightfully theirs.
“Our government is very clear about what our territories are. Making absurd claims does not make other people’s territories yours,” Jaishankar said.
“China has put out maps with territories (that are) not theirs. (It is an) old habit. Just by putting out maps with parts of India… this doesn’t change in anything,” Jaishankar said.
The external affairs minister’s statement came after China released the 2023 edition of its “standard map,” on Monday, showing Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin region as part of their territory.
The map released on August 28 shows Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims, as South Tibet and Aksai Chin occupied by it in the 1962 war as part of its territory. Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea are also included within the Chinese territory in the new map.
The map also incorporates China’s claims over the nine-dash line thus laying claim to a large part of the South China Sea.
Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei have all claims over the South China Sea areas.
According to the China Daily newspaper, the map was released by China’s ministry of natural resources during the celebration of Surveying and Mapping Publicity Day and the National Mapping Awareness Publicity Week in Deqing county, Zhejiang province recently.
Few days back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping had met on the side lines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra had said in his conversation with President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Modi highlighted India’s concerns over unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control in the Western Sector of the India-China border areas.
According to China Daily, the chief planner of China’s ministry of natural resources, Wu Wenzhong, said surveying, mapping and geographic information play an important role in boosting the development of the nation, meeting the needs of all walks of life, supporting the management of natural resources, and helping the construction of ecology and civilisation.
“The next step will be to accelerate the application of geographic information data such as digital maps and navigation and positioning in the development of the digital economy, such as location-based services, precision agriculture, platform economy and intelligent connected vehicles,” Wu said.
China has territorial disputes with more countries than it shares its borders with. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with Xi Jinping at the helm, has used deceitful tactics and manipulation in order to attempt to assert territorial control over other sovereign territories. Beijing has flouted all international norms in its expansionist bid to control more territory.
A desperate Beijing had in April this year unilaterally “renamed” as many as 11 Indian locations, which included names of mountain peaks, rivers and residential areas.
This is not the first time that Beijing has employed such tactics. Previously in 2017 and 2021, China’s civil affair ministry had renamed other Indian locations triggering another political confrontation. New Delhi called out China’s expansionist plans then.
Previously, the official spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs (MEA), Arindam Bagchi, while commenting on China’s attempt to show its domination in places belonging to India’s Arunachal Pradesh, said: “This is not the first time that China has attempted something like this (changing the names of areas in Arunachal Pradesh) and we have already condemned such attempts. We had said that Arunachal Pradesh is an inseparable part of India, and imposing invented names like these will not at all change the reality.”