India said that Beijing might keep repeating its baseless claims but that is not going to change New Delhi’s position on Arunachal Pradesh. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reiterated India’s stand that Arunachal Pradesh is and will always remain an integral part of the country.
MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, when asked during his weekly press briefing about China’s repeated claims over the frontier state, said, "Our position on the matter, Arunachal Pradesh, has been made very clear, time and again. Recently also, we issued a statement in this regard. China may repeat its baseless claims as many times as they want, that is not going to change our position. Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India."
His comments came after China repeated its claim on Arunachal Pradesh on Monday, continuing the war of words between the two nations.
India had, earlier too, rebutted China’s claims and called them baseless and absurd. "Repeating baseless arguments in this regard does not lend such claims any validity," Jaiswal had said earlier.
External Affairs minister S Jaishankar had also called the claims “ludicrous”. "This is not a new issue. I mean China has laid claim, it has expanded its claim. The claims are ludicrous to begin with and remain ludicrous today," he had said during an event in Singapore.
Additionally, the US had backed India over the matter. State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel had said that the United States recognises Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and strongly opposes any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims by incursions or encroachments, military or civilian, across the Line of Actual Control.
China recognises the area as Zangnan, something India has repeatedly dismissed. Beijing’s move to assign invented names to Indian territories does not alter reality, the ministry had said.
China had lodged protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s March 9th visit to Arunachal Pradesh to inaugurate the newly-built Sela Tunnel at an altitude of 13,000 ft. It is strategically located and is expected to provide all-weather connectivity.