China is at it again!
Existing territorial conflict between New Delhi and Beijing over Arunchal Pradesh is no concern of the past. The controversial issue has been revived as China recently took matters into its own hands, launching new e-passports in which it showed the regions of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin in J & K as parts of China. Although this act initially went unnoticed, Indian government sources soon saw the incongruence and confronted the Chinese ministry. Alman Kurshid, cabinet minister of the Ministry of External Affairs in India, deemed this action unacceptable, exclaiming, “We are not prepared to accept this.”
Beijing’s relative lack of response to India’s complaints and pleas shows that it either hasn’t fully understood India’s distress, or that it honestly doesn’t care. Instead, China continues to print its own map on visas issued to Chinese nationals with the territories as its own.
China has not only offended India, but other countries as well. Vietnam and the Philippines were not pleased to find that undisputed islands in the South China Sea were indicated as Chinese territories on the e-passports.
The whole point of a passport is to facilitate international travel and mutual understanding, not undermine it. China should redo its passport map and stop going on these geopolitical ego- trips.