China has consistently used maps to pursue its territorial claims in Asia, so much so that its 9-dash line has become emblematic over the past several years of the country’s ambitions of territorial expansion. A recent development in this regard triggered significant outrage, from Russia to Indonesia and from India to the Philippines.
On August 28, China released the latest version of its standard map, which showed several areas outside the country as part of its territory. The publication of this map led to concerns and protests by its neighbours.
This is not the first time that China has come up with such a map. The “additions” in the latest map provide a deeper insight into the country’s practice of “cartographic aggression” as well as its evolving outlook on its Lebensraum (living space).
China has historical and ongoing border disputes with almost all its neighbours. Currently, it has land border disputes only with India and Bhutan, but it has maritime territorial disputes with most, if not all, of its maritime neighbours: South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia. In addition, China considers independently ruled Taiwan as its own territory awaiting reunification.
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China’s maritime claims also overlap with those of Taiwan owing to their shared history. China’s territorial aggression has manifested itself violently several times in the past seven decades—vis-a-vis Taiwan, India, the erstwhile Soviet Union, Vietnam, and the Philippines (excluding China’s frontier regions of Tibet and Xinjiang).
China’s patterns of cartographic aggression mirror its evolving territorial claims. Its U-shaped 11-dash claim line over the South China Sea had its origins in a map published by the Republic of China government in 1948. The same was carried forward by the People’s Republic of China government after 1949. However, two lines from this were dropped after China gave up its maritime claim over the Gulf of Tongkin after an improvement in ties with Vietnam in 1952.
When the time came to submit its maritime claims to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2009, China submitted the map with a 9-dash line clashing with the exclusive economic zones of many South-East Asian countries.
This has resulted in more than a decade of sustained tension in the South China Sea and single-handedly defined regional insecurity in South-East Asia.
With regards to India, China had never accepted India’s demarcation lines of the border. In the western sector, British India’s proposal of the Johnson-Ardagh Line, which ran along the Kunlun range and kept Aksai Chin within Indian territory, was not acceptable to Imperial China. In the eastern sector, Republican China rejected British India’s McMahon Line, which demarcates India’s border with Tibet on the basis of the watershed principle. Hence, ambiguity became the norm of the India-China border, and it continued to remain so even after India became independent and China underwent a revolution. The differences over the border were such that a resolution appeared distant even during the heights of the India-China friendship in the 1950s. After the India-China war in 1962, the Line of Actual Control (LAC), an informal ceasefire line, became the de facto border between India and China, with Aksai Chin coming under China’s control.
However, there is a lack of understanding on both sides to this day as to the exact alignment of the LAC, leading to unclear demarcation, differing perspectives, frequent transgressions, and occasional skirmishes.
It is in this historical setting that China’s cartographic aggression against India has to be located. China has consistently pushed its version of the border on its maps, wherein both Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh are shown within China’s borders.
Cartographic aggression
China’s cartographic aggression is not just limited to lines on the map; it extends to names too. China has, of late, been on a renaming spree of what it considers to be its border areas, but which are located within Indian territory. It has renamed a total of 32 places in Arunachal Pradesh in the past few years: six in 2017, 15 in 2021, and 11 in 2023; they include geographical features and human settlements.
Whether in the Western Pacific or in the Himalayan region, China establishes its own lines and labels on the map before reaching a negotiated settlement, and it uses the duration of negotiations to alter facts on the ground to match the pre-drawn lines.
On August 28, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources released the new standard map on its standard map services website. The website released 275 maps of China, 93 maps of the world, and 12 thematic maps as part of its standardisation for 2023.
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