China includes Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin in new ‘standard map’

BEIJING: China has officially released the 2023 edition of its "standard map," which shows the state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin region as part of its 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 Chinese territory on 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 all have claims over the South China Sea areas.

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 on Monday in Deqing county, Zhejiang province, as per the China Daily newspaper.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra had said in his conversation with President Xi Jinping that Prime Minister Modi highlighted India's concerns on unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control in the Western Sector of the India-China border areas.

"The Prime Minister underlined that maintenance of peace and tranquilly in the border areas and observing and respecting the LAC are essential for the normalization of the India-China relationship. In this regard, two leaders agreed to direct their relevant officials to intensify efforts at expeditious disengagement and de-escalation," Kwatra had said.

According to China Daily, an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party,

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 civilization.

"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 economies, and intelligent connected vehicles," Wu said, as per China Daily.

Zhejiang has in recent years focused on the deep integration of the digital and real economies and has continued to promote the development of the digital economy, according to Li Yaowu, deputy secretary-general of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Government.

China has territorial disputes with more countries than it shares its borders with. The Chinese Communist Party, or 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.

China has now staked claims on parts of India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, arguing that these locations are part of greater Tibet.

In April of this year, Beijing 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 any such attempts. Regarding Arunachal Pradesh, we had also said that Arunachal Pradesh is an inseparable part of India, and imposing invented names like these will not at all change the reality. (ANI)

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