China and India renew war of words over Tibet

India calls Arunachal an ‘integral’ part of its country after Beijing adjusts place names 
By Lucy Hornby in Beijing and Aliya Ram in New Delhi

The Dalai Lama waves to supporters at a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayan Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh this month

China and India have renewed a war of words over the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a Tibetan Himalayan region claimed by Beijing, after China said it would “standardise” six place names in the territory.
The announcement of the new romanised spellings for three towns and three mountain passes by China’s ministry of civil affairs is the country’s latest move to stake its claim over an area that came under formal Indian control in a series of 19th-century boundary agreements between the Manchu Qing empire and the British government in India. 
India responded on Thursday by insisting that Arunachal Pradesh was “an integral part” of India. “Nothing can change that,” the foreign ministry in New Delhi said.
“We have an established bilateral mechanism to discuss the boundary question with China and it has made progress. We seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.”
Beijing’s current claims over Arunachal Pradesh — which it calls South Tibet — rest on its control over the rest of Tibet, the vast mountain territory it invaded and seized in 1950.
The decision to release new names follows a dispute over a visit to a Buddhist monastery in Arunachal this month by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who lives in exile in India. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the “standardisation” was in line with Chinese regulations on the management of geographical names.
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since 1959 when he fled Lhasa following a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
The influential leader is reviled by Beijing, which views him as a threat to China’s control of Tibet. After a previous visit to the Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh by the Dalai Lama in 2009, China stopped recognising the Indian passports of people born in the state.
Rather than normal visas, it issued travel permits stapled into their passports.
The dispute escalated as both countries included maps in newly issued passports showing the conflicting claims.
The ageing Dalai Lama has resisted attempts by Beijing to put forward its own candidate for his reincarnated successor.
He has said the reincarnated spiritual leader will not be born in Chinese territory.  
An alternative option of identifying his successor in Mongolia — which the Dalai Lama visited late last year — seems to be ruled out by China’s growing political and economic influence over its landlocked neighbour.
The place name “standardisation” adheres to a playbook China has followed in the case of other border territories it claims, for instance the Japanese Senkaku islands and atolls in the South China Sea.
According to the process, a first step is to have the territory in question recognised as “disputed” by an international audience.
“The motivation might be to show historical claim and historical ownership of the disputed territory,” said Jian Zhang, associate professor at the University of New South Wales.

Hurting the Feelings of the Chinese Dictators

India to host Dalai Lama in disputed territory
By Sanjeev Miglani and Tommy Wilkes | NEW DELHI

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama wipes his face during an international conference of Tibet support groups in Brussels, Belgium, September 8, 2016. 

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama puts a towel on his head during a news conference in Paris, France, September 13, 2016.

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is seen at the Arcimboldi theater before receiving honorary citizenship of the city of Milan, in Milan, Italy October 20, 2016. 

Indian federal government representatives will meet the Dalai Lama when he visits Arunachal Pradesh, officials said, despite a warning from Beijing that it would damage ties.
India says the Tibetan spiritual leader will make a religious trip to Arunachal Pradesh next month, and as a secular democracy it would not stop him from traveling to any part of the country.
China claims the state in the eastern Himalayas as "South Tibet", and has denounced foreign and even Indian leaders' visits to the region as attempts to bolster New Delhi's territorial claims.
A trip by the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese regard as a dangerous "separatist", would ratchet up tensions at a time when New Delhi is at odds with China on strategic and security issues and unnerved by Beijing's growing ties with arch-rival Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration is raising its public engagement with the Tibetan leader, a change from earlier governments' reluctance to anger Beijing by sharing a public platform with him.
"It's a behavioral change you are seeing. India is more assertive," junior home minister Kiren Rijiju told Reuters in an interview.
Rijiju, who is from Arunachal and is Modi's point man on Tibetan issues, said he would meet the Dalai Lama, who is visiting the Buddhist Tawang monastery after an eight-year interval.
"He is going there as a religious leader, there is no reason to stop him. His devotees are demanding he should come, what harm can he do? He is a lama."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday the Dalai Lama's trip would cause serious damage to India-China ties.

CHINA INVESTING NEARBY
Visits of the Dalai Lama are initiated months, if not years in advance, and approval for the April 4-13 trip predates recent disagreements between the neighbors.
But the decision to go ahead at a time of strained relations signals Modi's readiness to use diplomatic tools at a time when China's economic and political clout across South Asia is growing.
China is helping to fund a new trade corridor across India's neighbor and arch-foe Pakistan, and has also invested in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, raising fears of strategic encirclement.
Last month a Taiwanese parliamentary delegation visited Delhi, angering Beijing, which regards Taiwan as an integral part of China.
In December, President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Dalai Lama at his official residence with other Nobel prize winners, the first public meeting with an Indian head of state in 60 years.
Some officials said India's approach to the Tibetan issue remained cautious, reflecting a gradual evolution in policy rather than a sudden shift, and Modi appears reluctant to go too far for fear of upsetting its large northern neighbor.
India's foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, was in Beijing last week on a visit that analysts said was aimed at stabilizing relations between the world's most populous countries.

TANGIBLE SHIFT
That said, Modi's desire to pursue a more assertive foreign policy since his election in 2014 was quickly felt in contacts with China.
At one bilateral meeting early in his tenure, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj asked her Chinese counterpart whether Beijing had a "one India" policy, according to a source familiar with India-China talks, a pointed reference to Beijing's demand that countries recognize its "one China" policy.
"One India" would imply that China recognize India's claims to Kashmir, contested by Pakistan, as well as border regions like Arunachal Pradesh.
India's hosting of the Dalai Lama since he fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule has long irritated Beijing. 

But government ministers often shied away from regular public meetings with the Buddhist monk.
"These meetings were happening before. Now it is public," Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in the Indian town of Dharamsala, said in an interview.
"I notice a tangible shift. With all the Chinese investments in all the neighboring countries, that has generated debate within India," he said.
The chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, a member of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, met the Dalai Lama in New Delhi in October and officially invited him to visit the state.
On the Dalai Lama's last visit in 2009, the state's chief minister met him. 

This time he will be joined by federal minister Rijiju, a move the Chinese may see as giving the trip an official imprimatur.
New Delhi has been hurt by China's refusal to let it join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the global cartel that controls nuclear commerce.
India has also criticized Beijing for stonewalling its request to add the head of a banned Pakistani militant group to a U.N. Security Council blacklist.
Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, said New Delhi appeared to have been surprised by China's inflexibility since Modi came to power, fuelling distrust in the Indian security establishment.
"India does feel that the cards are stacked against it and that it should retain and play the cards that it does have," he said. 

"The Dalai Lama and Tibetan exile community is clearly one of those cards."