&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "China pushes illegal claim on India's Shaksgam Valley, hides behind Pakistan deal from 1960s")
China on Monday (Jan 12) once again sought to lay claim to the Shaksgam Valley in Jammu and Kashmir, which India insists remains an 'integral and inalienable' part of its territory. Rejecting India's claim over the Shaksgam Valley, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing considers the area to be part of its territory. This comes as India on Friday (Jan 9) slammed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, noting that it passes through Indian territory that is under forcible and illegal occupation of Pakistan.
What did China claim?
Responding to a question on border issues, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that the Shaksgam Valley "belongs to China". She argued that China was well within its rights to carry out infrastructure construction there. Ning cited a boundary agreement signed between China and Pakistan in the 1960s, claiming that the borders between the two countries had already been demarcated. According to Mao, that agreement represented a legitimate settlement reached by two sovereign states.
China's state-run Global Times quoted Mao as saying that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, is an economic cooperation project aimed at boosting development and improving livelihoods in the region. She stressed that both the boundary agreement and CPEC do not alter China's long-standing position on the Kashmir issue.
India, however, has firmly rejected that narrative.
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Who does the Shaksgam Valley belong to?
"Shaksgam Valley is Indian territory", said External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on January 9. New Delhi condemned China’s infrastructure activities in the Shaksgam Valley, calling them "illegal and invalid" and reiterating that the region is an integral part of India.
Jaiswal noted that India "has never recognised the so-called China-Pakistan 'boundary agreement' signed in 1963," and said that "We have consistently maintained that the agreement is illegal and invalid".
We do not recognise the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor either, which passes through Indian territory, which is under forcible and illegal occupation of Pakistan," added the Indian MEA. Protesting China's attempts to change facts on the ground in the Shaksgam Valley, he underlined that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are "integral and inalienable" parts of India, adding that New Delhi has conveyed this "to Pakistani and Chinese authorities several times".
The Shaksgam Valley lies north of the Siachen Glacier, bordering China's Xinjiang region to the north and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to the south and west.
