Union Home Minister Amit Shah. PTI.
Beijing: China appears to be miffed by India’s Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. A foreign ministry spokesperson of China said Shah’s visit violates Beijing’s territorial sovereignty and “is not conducive to the peace and tranquility of the border situation.”
Amit Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh comes a week after China renamed 11 places in Indian state which China claims as part of its territory.
‘Zangnan is China’s territory’
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “Zangnan is China’s territory,” when he was asked about Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh.
Amit Shah Arunachal Pradesh visit
India’s home minister is on a two-day visit to Arunachal Pradesh. He is scheduled to launch the ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ (VVP) in Kibithoo, a village along the India-China border.
The visit is Shah’s first to the northeastern state as the home minister. He is scheduled to inaugurate nine micro hydel projects constructed under the ‘Golden Jubilee Border Illumination Programme’ in Kibithoo.
Also Read: Amit Shah to visit Arunachal village along China border
Shah will also inaugurate Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) projects to augment infrastructure at Likabali (Arunachal Pradesh), Chapra (Bihar), Nooranad (Kerala) and Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh).
Shah is slated to interact with ITBP personnel at Kibithoo in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh.
On Tuesday, he will visit the Namti field and pay homage at the Walong war memorial.
The VVP is a centrally sponsored scheme under which 2,967 villages in 46 blocks of 19 districts abutting the northern border in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Ladakh have been identified for comprehensive development.
In the first phase, 662 villages, including 455 in Andhra Pradesh, have been identified for priority coverage.
India ‘outrightly rejects’ renaming of 11 places in Arunachal by China
On 2 April, China announced it would “standardise” the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh and released a list of 11 places on a map that showed regions in the Indian state as those inside the southern Tibetan region, which China calls “Zangnan”.
The Indian government outrightly rejected China’s sovereignty over the region. India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi in a statement reiterated that Arunachal Pradesh remains an internal part of India.
“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright,” he said.
With inputs from agencies
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