China declares two new counties, one of them includes large parts of India's Aksai Chin

China has created new counties in Xinjiang, out of which one is made up mainly of Indian territory that it illegally occupied in Aksai Chin.

The people's government of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Friday announced the establishment of the two counties, naming them He'an County and Hekang County.

The establishment of both these counties has been administered by Hotan Prefecture and has been approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.

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This comes just 10 days after the Special Representatives of both nations restarted the boundary negotiation, which had not happened for almost five years.

Hongliu and Xeyidula townships have been declared as the “county seats” (administrative headquarters) of He'an and Hekang respectively.

Moreover, He'an County encompasses a large part of 38,000 sq km of area India accuses China of illegally occupying in Aksai Chin.

However, India has not reacted to this yet.

Earlier this month, India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Beijing for the 23rd round of boundary negotiations.

Following the meet, the two nations began the process that was stalled for five years after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s aggressive moves along the Line of Actual Control and the Indian Army’s counter-deployment in April-May 2020 led to a military standoff in eastern Ladakh.

It led to prolonged tensions between the two nations, significantly straining the relations.

Moreover, this month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India remains "committed to engaging with China through bilateral discussions to arrive at a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable framework for a boundary settlement."

(With inputs from agencies)