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HomeDiplomacyChinese diplomat in Pakistan links Ladakh standoff to Article 370, deletes tweet...

Chinese diplomat in Pakistan links Ladakh standoff to Article 370, deletes tweet later

Wang Xianfengm, a press officer at Chinese mission in Islamabad, had tweeted Thursday that India's 'unilateral' actions in Kashmir posed 'a challenge to the sovereignty of China'.

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New Delhi: A Chinese envoy in Pakistan has sent diplomatic circles in a flurry after he suggested that the standoff between India and China in Ladakh may be linked to the revocation of Article 370, in a tweet.

Wang Xianfengm, a press officer at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad according to his Twitter bio, put out a tweet Thursday that said: “India’s actions of unilaterally changing the status quo of Kashmir and continuing to exacerbate regional tensions have posed a challenge to the sovereignty of China and Pakistan and made the India-Pakistan relations and China-India relations more complex.”

The tweet was subsequently deleted Saturday.

India and China have been engaged in a military and diplomatic border standoff at Ladakh for nearly a month now, and this tweet led to fresh speculations about China’s intentions.

On 5 August 2019, the Narendra Modi government revoked Article 370 withdrawing a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The state was also bifurcated into the union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.


Also read: LAC standoff: India looks at ‘early resolution’, while China says agreement reached


India opened up ‘new territory on map’ after Article 370 move

Wang also linked an article by Chinese scholar Wang Shida of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in his tweet, which makes the same correlation.

The article, titled India blinded by ‘double confidence’, notes that India had “taken constant actions to unilaterally change the status quo of Kashmir and continued to exacerbate regional tensions” since last August.

The author also states that India “opened up new territory on the map” with respect to China with the scrapping of Article 370.

“On the Chinese side, India ‘opened up new territory on the map’, incorporated part of the areas under the local jurisdiction of Xinjiang and Tibet into its Ladakh Union territory, and placed Pakistani-administered Kashmir within its so-called Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir,” writes Shida.

“This forced China into the Kashmir dispute, stimulated China and Pakistan to take counter-actions on the Kashmir issue and dramatically increased the difficulty in resolving the border issue between China and India,” he adds.


Also read: India ‘working faster’ on bridge in Galwan Valley after China’s objections amid stand-off


China conveyed issue to Jaishankar: Wang Shida article

The article by Wang Shida also claims that China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi had conveyed these views to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar when he visited Beijing last year.

“Wang Yi, State Councilor and Foreign Minister, mentioned in his meeting with Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s moves challenged China’s sovereign rights and interests and violated the agreement on maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas between the two countries,” the article states.

India at the time had maintained that it was an “internal matter”, it adds.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. India , China and India, Pakistan conflicts revolve around Jammu and Kashmir. All three are nuclear powers. No, one side should take unilateral decision about Kashmir. Ear is not a solution. Even if one side can impose a forced decision on others, this won’t last long. The only viable solution guaranteed to provide a long lasting peace is the one which is negotiated between all parties giving top priority to the actual aggrieved party which is the Kashmiri people.
    Any other way will keep this region boiling without an end. This is the honest truth.

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