On April 10, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) released a list of names for 23 mountain passes, peaks, rivers, and settlements in Chinese characters, Tibetan script, and pinyin, with precise GPS coordinates. The problem was that all these locations are in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state. A sharp rebuttal followed from New Delhi, on April 12, with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson describing the move as “mischievous attempt” and a “baseless narrative.”
This is the sixth time the Chinese MCA has released such names, to be dismissed by India.
For Beijing, there is a strategic logic to such regular moves to maintain the Chinese claims over an Indian territory. Although few in New Delhi seem to believe that China would use force over Arunachal Pradesh, such regular claims keeps the water on the boil, even China-India relations have entered a phase of tactical conflict avoidance.
While this can be construed as part of China’s strategy to put India on the defensive and make Arunachal or Zangnan (southern Tibet), as Beijing refers to it, a formal agenda item for future boundary negotiations between the two nations, this could also be China’s attempt to cement its authority over Tibet and deal with the uncertainties associated with the Dalai Lama reincarnation issue.
Tawang is home to the famous Tawang monastery, which holds deep significance for Tibetan Buddhism and acts as a symbolic center of resistance to Chinese authority. This second-largest monastery in Tibetan Buddhism gained deep political symbolism when the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet and sought refuge there in 1959. Forsaking its claim over the area, therefore, could push China to the backfoot, a diplomatic position that Beijing wouldn’t want to accept within its assertive foreign policy.
New Delhi’s strategy, on the other hand, especially since the Doklam standoff, has grown firmer, combining a range of hard security measures as well as soft ones to develop the region and mainstream its land and people. I witnessed some of this during a recent field visit to Arunachal Pradesh this month.
Tawang, situated along the Line of Actual Control, the informal China-India border, was used by Chinese forces to advance into Indian territory during the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Since then for India, it serves as a frontline area for defense against China, allowing Indian forces to monitor cross-border movements, specifically near the Bumla Pass. While this sounds simple enough, a drive through the mountainous high-altitude snow-clad passes like Bumla and Sela brings to light the arduous task for the security forces that guard the territory. The roads particularly around the border areas need greater investment and repairs. The Border Roads Organization (BRO), a premier statutory body under India’s Ministry of Defense with a mandate to develop and maintain critical road networks, bridges, tunnels, and airfields in border areas, needs to do a better job of building and maintaining such crucial border infrastructure, especially when its budget has witnessed a steady increase over the years.
India has undertaken massive infrastructure building projects in recent years, with three principal objectives: strengthening border defense; improving its ability for all-weather rapid troop mobility; and developing the area to make it a tourist-friendly integral part of the country. India is spending over 400 billion Indian rupees (approximately $4.16 billion) on roads, tunnels, and connectivity projects as part of its accelerated strategic infrastructure development of the region. In March 2024, the Sela tunnel, which is world’s longest high-altitude bi-lane road tunnel, constructed at 13,000 feet, was opened. Built at the cost of $100 million, it provides year-round access to Tawang bypassing the Sela Pass, which is susceptible to heavy snowfall. That means easier troop logistics. Arunachal has also received 49 billion rupees (approximately $510 million) as part of New Delhi’s Pride of Hills scheme to address critical infrastructure and developmental gaps.
Dual purpose projects like this, for both military and civilian use, have contributed to the flocking of tourists to popular destinations like Tawang, Dirang, and Bomdila, but also new locations like Mago and Chuna. There are flourishing Buddhist monasteries in each of these locations. The tourists thronging to these monasteries help India retain its claim of being the religion’s original flag bearer. India and China’s competition is just not territorial but also cultural and civilizational. By housing the Buddhist monasteries and Dalai Lama, India intends to use its soft power potential.
India is also implementing the Vibrant Village Program (VVP), in 150 villages in Tawang, to turn them into tourist attractions, bringing life to local markets and home stays. As a result, the domestic as well as foreign tourist footprint in Tawang has increased significantly over the last decade. Tourists in Tawang don’t just get a glimpse of the magnificence of mountainous terrain, but also get to visit the Jaswant Garh War Memorial and the Tawang War Memorial. The latter has a stupa (Buddhist shrine) built to commemorate the Indian soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the 1962 war. India suffered a setback in the war, but the attempt is to remind the visitors the valor of its troops and also the breach of trust by the Chinese who waged an illegal war thus continuing to shape the narrative and collective psyche against a revisionist power.
All this seems to have generated a wave of heightened expectations among the local Arunachali population. I spoke to a number of people from various walks of life. While their allegiance to the India remains despite the Chinese claims and contestations, they hope to have more jobs, industries, inclusion, and economic opportunities from New Delhi’s expanding footprint.
In the face of the Chinese irredentist claims over Arunachal, New Delhi has attempted to transform a geopolitically sensitive frontier into a living, breathing part of the Indian nation. The challenge now is to sustain this momentum, ensuring that the promise of development translates into lasting opportunity for the communities whose everyday lives are the most compelling argument against Beijing’s claims.