China protest won’t change Arunachal’s reality: India

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, March 12

In continuing diplomatic skirmishing between the two nations, India hit back at China taking objection to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

A day earlier, the Indian embassy in Beijing was the country’s only overseas mission to retweet PM Modi’s post on X hailing DRDO scientists for Mission Divyastra, the first flight-test of indigenously developed Agni-V missile with MIRV technology.

A couple of days back, Beijing had lashed out over a Bloomberg report, that later turned out to be inaccurate, mentioning India moving 10,000 soldiers to the border with China. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “We reject the comments made by the Chinese side regarding the PM’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh. Indian leaders visit Arunachal from time to time as they visit other states of India. Objecting to such visits or India’s developmental projects does not stand to reason.

“Further, it will not change the reality that Arunachal was, is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.” Jaiswal was reacting to his Chinese counterpart’s reply to a question at a media briefing, which used strong words to criticise PM Modi’s March 9 trip.

Diplomatic sparring over PM’s visit

Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Chinese side has been made aware of this consistent position on several occasions. — Randhir Jaiswal, MEA spokesperson