The U.S. has thrown its weight behind India’s claim to the Arunachal Pradesh region, a move that has further intensified the border feud between the two Asian giants, China and India.
“The United States recognizes Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and we strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims by incursions or encroachments, military or civilian, across the Line of Actual Control,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Wednesday.
The State Department’s comment follows China’s sharp rebuke against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh to inaugurate the Sela Tunnel in a strategic border region. Beijing calls Arunachal Pradesh Zangnan in Chinese.
China claims Arunachal Pradesh as a part of “South Tibet,” while Beijing has fought a bloody war with India in the 1960s over the region.
On March 9, Modi inaugurated the Sela Tunnel, a strategic infrastructure project that will enhance all-weather connectivity to the frontier region of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang. The construction of the strategic Sela Tunnel began in October 2020.
The Line of Actual Control, the disputed 2,100-mile border, divides the two Asian giants and has been at the heart of tensions between the two in their seven-decade-long diplomatic relations.
China and India have been locked in a four-year-long military stand-off, which began in June 2020 after the two sides clashed in a physical skirmish in the eastern section of the disputed border.
Beijing and New Delhi have held 21 rounds of talks to resolve the ongoing military stand-off, with the most recent discussions on February 19 at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point in Eastern Ladakh.
Newsweek contacted China’s Embassy in Washington, D.C. for comment.
The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday opposed the comments by a State Department spokesperson backing India.
“China strongly deplores and firmly opposes this. The China-India boundary has never been delimited. Zangnan has always been China’s territory, a basic fact that is undeniable. The China-India boundary question is a matter between the two countries and has nothing to do with the U.S. side,” Lin Jian, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Thursday.
“It is known to all that the U.S. has consistently spared no efforts to provoke and take advantage of other countries’ conflicts to serve its selfish geopolitical interests,” Lin added.
Meanwhile, the Chinese state media have responded sharply to the U.S. support for India’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh.
“Just as New Delhi was slightly ‘intoxicated’ with the China-India border issue, Washington opportunistically brought over a toxic drink,” Chinese state newspaper Global Times said in an editorial on Thursday.
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“The cost of producing this poison in Washington is extremely low, or virtually costless, consisting of nothing more than a few statements like those from the U.S. State Department this time, but it’s highly toxic,” Global Times added.
Meanwhile, amid the controversy, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has called Arunachal Pradesh an integral part of India.
“Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Its people will continue to benefit from our development programs and infrastructure projects,” Randhir Jaiswal, MEA spokesperson, said on Tuesday.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.