China's Road Construction In Arunachal: A Planned Move?

When the Chinese road construction machines rolled, almost 1.25 km inside the imaginary Line of Actual Control or the McMohan Line at Bishing village in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tuting area in Upper Siang district, one young boy Joni Yaying first noticed it and he took steps to not just stop the construction but he also destroyed one Chinese excavator. Even though his heroic act has been lauded by many, but China entering into the Indian territory with ‘ease’, however, once again opens up a lot of questions regarding the vigil along the India-China border, especially in Arunachal Pradesh. Northeast Today digs in deeper

Chinese Road Construction

India and China have been at loggerheads for the past 5-6 decades and the tension between the two countries refuses to die out. From Siachen to Arunachal Pradesh, the entire Himalayan belt is a hot-belt of conflicts. It was only in August 2017 when both the Indian and the Chinese army found themselves pointing guns towards each other at Doklam. A strategic solution was achieved in this matter and it was thought that things are gradually turning sweet from sour between the two Asian giants, but this presumption, however, was short-lived. Towards the end of December 2017, it was reported that China was constructing a road at Bishing village in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tuting area in Upper Siang district, the point closest to where the Chinese road construction machines rolled, almost 1.25 km inside the imaginary Line of Actual Control or the McMohan Line. This irked many and eventually, the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) had to step in and thwart off the Chinese construction workers.

Even though the Chinese government has later issued a clarification that the construction workers entered into the village by ‘mistake’. But going by China’s claim over Arunachal Pradesh, which they call as the Southern Tibet, the clarification is, however, difficult to buy.

“There are a lot of skeletons inside the closet. I feel the road construction by mistake is just a small chapter of an even larger book,” says ManishTalukdar, a doctoral student pursuing his PhD in international relations from Delhi.

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