After passports, China adds Kashmir provocation
21 Oct 2009
After the separate visas issue to Indian passport holders from Jammu and Kashmir, China has taken another jab at India by distributing maps that show Kashmir as a separate country.
Media kits providing 'basic information' about Tibet, which the Chinese annexed in the 1950s describe Tibet as bordering India, Nepal, Myanmar and Kashmir area.
Except for the 'Kashmir area' the rest are three sovereign countries. Maps in China, Mynmar and Nepal also show Kashmir excluded from Indian territory.
Also given the fact that China follows a policy of extending assistance to governments of sovereign states, its offer of financial assistance to construct a dam on the Indus river in Pakistan-administered Kashmir points to its position on the status of the territory in Kashmir under Pakistani control.
India urged China last week to stop building projects inside the Pakistan-ruled part of disputed Kashmir. India controls 45 per cent of the disputed Himalayan region while Pakistan holds a third with the rest being under Chinese control, ever since Pakistan ceded portions of its occupied territory to China.
China is also insisting that the open border between India and Nepal be tightened claiming to prevent anti-China activities and demonstrations by Tibetans crossing into Nepal from India.
Beijing is also suggesting that India abolish the seat of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader in Dharmashala in India, to improve India-China relations.
The Indian state of Aruanchal Pradesh has also been a bone of contention between the two neighbours in recent times with China laying claims to the state.
