India and China are sparring again over visas for residents of Arunachal Pradesh, a state China is reluctant to accept as part of India. Earlier this month, two residents of Arunachal Pradesh (an official from the Indian Weightlifting Federation and a weightlifter) on their way to China for participating in an event were stopped by the immigration in Delhi, for their passports had the Chinese visas stapled as a sheet on their passport and not stamped on the actual passport itself.
The two nations have argued over the stapled visa issue earlier too when China started giving out such visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir, an area disputed between India and China's good friend, Pakistan. India had taken up the stapled visa for J&K residents with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao just over a month ago and had been assured that it would be looked at seriously. Far from acting on the promise of J&K, China has now done the same for residents from our north-eastern state.
The Chinese government has been maintaining that there is no change in their "visa policy for residents of Arunachal Pradesh. China does not issue visas to officials from that state and will still not do it. For non-officials, we only issue stapled visas."
This is a LIE and here is the proof. This lady, resident of Itanagar in Arunachal, is a school teacher and was born in Lower Subansiri in Arunachal Pradesh. Her Indian passport was issued to her by the regional passport office at Guwahati.
She visited Beijing in 1995 as an official delegate for a UN Conference as part of an accredited NGO representative, on a visa stamped on her passport.
As one can see, she is a resident of Arunachal, has an Indian passport and the Chinese visa that allowed her to travel was stamped on the sheet of her passport. It is not stapled. And she DID require a visa to travel.
Could it be that the Chinese did recognise Arunachal as part of India till just five years ago and have decided to play up now? If so, what does it show? Does it show that they perceive India to be weaker than what it was?
I think they do. The way they have ratcheted up on the visa issue for J&K and Arunachal, and the brazenness with which they entered our territory in Ladakh and stopped work at a developmental project recently, all show they see us increasingly as a pushover. About Ladakh, if you remember, I had done a post on May 19, 2009 – The Chinese think big, we don't, where I had talked about the boat patrolling of the stunning Pangong Tso at 14000 feet. Forty per cent of this lake is in India and the remainder in China. I had mentioned about how it is common knowledge among the locals that the Chinese intrude into Indian waters repeatedly and go back in their high speed boats. Indians too have these boats, but they outnumber us 1:11.
Back to the current incident. If I, with very little effort, can get hold of someone from Arunachal whose passport has the Chinese visa stamped properly, why is it that the government, with all the resources at its disposal, unable to do so. I would have expected the foreign ministry to immediately react and tell the Chinese to shut up and not lie that its "stance has not changed."
Too much to expect of a regime that is weak, meek and confused, perhaps.
