(TibetanReview.net, Nov11’26) – China’s official media has on Nov 10 criticized the Indian government for taking coercive measures to crack down on residents of “Zangnan,” citing foreign media reports. “Zangnan” – or Southern Tibet – is China’s name for the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims is part of its territory on the basis of its illegal annexation of Tibet in the 1950s.
On Nov 10, its online Tibet news service eng,tibet.cn carried a statement dated Nov 6 attributed to Pasang Norbu, “former vice president and research fellow of the Xizang Academy of Social Sciences, founder and first president of the Tsangyang Gyatso Cultural Research Association of Xizang, and a renowned Tibetan scholar”. It said Pasang Norbu issued the solemn statement in his personal capacity.
Pasang has called the region where India is pushing forward the hydropower project an inherent part of China’s territory. “The boundaries unilaterally delineated by India are entirely illegal and have no legal validity whatsoever. India has no right to undertake any development or construction activities on this land belonging to China without authorization,” he has written.
India’s position is that the McMahon Line delineates the border between Tibet and India, which recognized Arunachal Pradesh as part of Indian territory. The Line was drawn during the 1914 Simla Convention involving the governments of Tibet, Republic of China (ROC), and British India. The ROC took full part in the deliberations but did not eventually sign the agreement. This, however, did not mean that the territory was therefore part of China. As a matter of fact, the territory had historical, ethnic, and cultural ties only with Tibet, with China being an unknown sovereign entity to it.
Pasang’s second contention is that “India’s forcible advancement of this hydropower project disregards the vital interests of the indigenous people who have lived here for generations and ignores their concerns regarding their homes, environmental protection, livelihoods and indigenous culture.” He has expressed firm support for “the protests launched by local residents to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.”
But does China practice what Pasang preaches to lend value and legitimacy to his assertions? The forced displacement of large populations of local inhabitants throughout the length and breadth of the Tibetan Plateau region to make way for enormous numbers of Chinese dams, mines, and numerous other undertakings, and the severe persecution and jailing of those who protested over the loss of livelihood, lack of proper compensation, environmental devastation, air and water pollution, desecration of sacred sites, and so forth as a result thereof is all too well documented.
The above points also answer Pasang third and fourth contentions, namely, that “India’s forcible advancement of construction projects on Chinese territory and its use of security forces to suppress the demands of local residents constitute blatant illegal acts and seriously violate the fundamental principles of international law,” and that “no project pursued through illegal occupation or unilateral actions can alter the objective fact of territorial sovereignty.”