China’s co-opting of Arunachal Pradesh with Mandarin names and East Ladakh with rejected 1959 lines indicates its ambition to dominate Asia.
After India, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam protested against China’s cartographical expansion this week by publishing the so-called 2023 Standard Map, Beijing dismissed it by saying that the map was routine practice and asked the protesting countries to refrain from over-interpreting the issue.
Chinese President Xi Jinping.
However, a closer look at the map shows that it is much more than a routine annual exercise as all the places within co-opted Arunachal Pradesh have been given new Mandarin names, the third tranche of which was released by Beijing in April 2023. Whether it is East Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Taiwan or the nine-dash line in the South China Sea, the map earmarks what China claims as its own territory based on a twisted and convenient historical past.
China has claimed Taiwan as part of its own territory but as recently as 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki concluded between the Qing Empire and the Empire of Japan, the island nation was declared a major overseas colony of Japan. The kingdom of Formosa, now Taiwan, was first annexed by the Qing Empire in 1683 but was only made a full province of the empire in 1887 with a series of indigenous armed rebellions and interventions by Japanese, Americans and the French in the interregnum. If China claims Taiwan as its territory, then the expansionist Xi Jinping regime should also earmark Vladivostok in its territorial claim as it was handed over to Russians under the Treaty of Aigun between the Qing Dynasty and the Russian Empire as late as 1860.
By the same untenable logic, India should also claim parts of Tibet as Dogra general Zorawar Singh annexed parts of western Tibet and went up to Manasarover Lake in the first half of the 19th century.
While China has been annually publishing maps as part of what it calls routine practice, it is the first time that India lodged a serious protest with the embassy in Delhi followed by in Beijing, making it amply clear that it will not allow cartographical expansion for future territorial claims. By calling the release of the standard map by the Ministry of Natural Resources as routine, Beijing is trying to distance its Communist leadership from what appears to be a deliberate and planned exercise. It is quite evident from the latest move that China has not given up on belligerence and is preparing its military for staking the cartographical claims in future.
Even though China is threatening to co-opt Taiwan and militarily merge with the mainland, the exercise is fraught with serious risks as it involves large-scale amphibious operations which could lead to PLA losses as the island nation is well defended from all quarters. Simply put, China under paramount leader Xi Jinping could face a loss of face if Taiwan retaliates on the Chinese mainland and defends its own territory backed by potent American arms supplies.
In this context, China could militarily exercise its claims over Arunachal Pradesh and East Ladakh in future but the Indian Army and the political leadership have woken to Beijing’s threat after the May 2020 blatant transgressions by the PLA in Galwan, Gogra-Hot Springs and on Pangong Tso. The publishing of the so-called standard map has renewed the Chinese threat as far as India is concerned as the map included parts of East Ladakh based on an already rejected 1959 line. The Indian protest has also forced the affected ASEAN countries to react or else face music from opposition parties and the public. The map is not routine but an instrument of Chinese assertion and desire to militarily dominate Asia through patently false cartographical claims.
