(TibetanReview.net, Nov26’24) –China’s customs authorities have confiscated three inbound books that contained maps which did not reflect Beijing’s claims on a host of disputed or others’ territories, including those along India-Tibet border regions.
The books were intercepted by the customs staff in East China’s Fujian Province recently, the report said, citing an announcement from China Customs on its official WeChat account on Nov 24. The customs staff at the Rongcheng customs post office affiliated with Fuzhou Customs District identified three books with problematic maps during an inspection of inbound mails, reported China’s official globaltimes.cn Nov 25.
The problematic maps wrongly labelled the island of Taiwan as a “country”, misrepresented the names and sovereignty of China’s Aksai Chin region in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Zangnan (the southern part of China’s Xizang Autonomous Region), the announcement was cited as saying.
Aksai Chin is claimed by India as part of its Union Territory of Ladakh but has remained under Chinese occupation after China annexed Tibet in the middle of the last century.
Zangnan is Chinese Pinyin for “southern Tibet” and refers to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, but claimed by China on the basis of its claim of sovereignty over Tibet.
The report said the maps also misdescribed the names and sovereignty of the Diaoyu Dao (or Diaoyu Islands, a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea administered by Japan as Senkaku Islands), and omitted the dashed line in the South China Sea.
All these alleged infractions violated the one-China principle and severely undermined national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, the report cited China Customs as saying.
Maps are the primary representation of a country’s territory and carry significant political, scientific, and legal significance. Printed materials and publications that do not comply with China’s map regulations are prohibited from being carried in and out of the country, China Customs has further said.
The books were stated to have been confiscated and the case transferred to relevant departments for further action.