CHINA'S STANDARDISATION

5. What is McMahon Line?

• The disputed boundary in the Eastern Sector of the India-China border is over the McMahon Line.
• Representatives of China, India, and Tibet in 1913-14 met in Shimla to settle the boundary between Tibet and India, and Tibet and China.
• During the Shimla conference, Sir Henry McMahon, the then foreign secretary of British India, drew up the 550-mile (890 km) McMahon Line as the border between British India and Tibet.

6. The dispute between India and China's  Eastern sector

• The McMohan line moved British control substantially northwards. This agreement ceded Tawang and other areas to the imperial British Empire.
• Though the Chinese representatives at the meeting initiated the agreement, they subsequently refused to accept it.
• Subsequently, the Chinese government stated that it does not recognize the "Illegal McMohan Line.
• China accuses India of occupying areas in Arunachal, which it calls part of Southern Tibet.
• China claims territory to the south of the McMohan Line, lying in Arunachal Pradesh.
• China also bases its claims on the historical ties that have existed between the monasteries in Tawang and Lhasa.

7. What is behind China's move?

• As with the two previous cases, India rejected the Chinese announcement. Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.
• More broadly, the moves from Beijing point to a hardening of its stand on territorial disputes, which are now seen less as matters to be resolved diplomatically and bilaterally but as questions of China's sovereignty.
• Besides the renaming, the new border law as well as the new regulations from the State Council all underscore how under current leader Xi Jinping, the protection of national sovereignty and the territory has been mandated under various laws.
• This has also driven more activity along the borders from local­level authorities, such as stepped-up programs to build new civilian settlements (including some that have come up
  on territory disputed by both Bhutan and India) as well as other border infrastructure.

8. What does China seek to gain from making these claims? 

• It is a part of the Chinese strategy to assert its territorial claims over Indian territory.
• As a part of this strategy, China routinely issues statements of outrage whenever an Indian dignitary visits Arunachal Pradesh.
• It did so when the then Vice President Venkaiah Naidu went there to address the state Assembly in October 2021.
• The first batch of renaming in 2017 had come days after the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh.
• Also, Chinese officials claim that standardization was necessary since all names used in southern Tibet were inherited through word-of-mouth for generations by minority ethnic groups.
• Hence, these names reflect that China's proposal on the sovereignty claim of the region has a prominent historical, cultural, administrative, and jurisdictional.
• Laying aggressive claims to territories based on alleged historical injustices done to China is part of Beijing's foreign policy playbook. The Claim on Taiwan is one such example.
• Also, consistent efforts are being made by China to change the facts on the ground in several disputed islands in the south china sea.