Amid tension on the border in Ladakh and with Chinese President XI Jinping expected to attend the forthcoming G-20 summit in New Delhi in September, China has now come out with its “standard map” showing Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as part of its territory.

In a strong rebuff, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that China has a “habit” of releasing such maps and told Beijing that merely including other countries’ territories in its maps meant nothing. Making this assertion in an interview to a private television channel on Tuesday, Jaishankar said, “China has put out maps with territories (that are) not theirs. (It is an) old habit. Just by putting out maps with parts of India... this doesn’t change anything. Our Government is very clear about what our territory (is). Making absurd claims does not make other people’s territories yours.” He also de-linked disengagement talks along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with  China’s new map, the release of which was sandwiched between the G20 Summit in Delhi next weekend and last week’s “informal conversation” between Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS Summit in South Africa.

Modi had then conveyed to Jinping, India’s “concerns over unresolved issues along LAC and other areas along the Indo-China border”.

Indian and Chinese troops clashed along the LAC in the state’s Tawang sector in December last year — a face-off that came amid a months-long border standoff in eastern Ladakh that prompted Delhi to bolster overall military readiness along the LAC in the Arunachal Pradesh sector as well.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had charged China with trying to “unilaterally” change the status quo and, last month,  Jaishankar said the situation remains “very fragile” and “quite dangerous”.

 “The 2023 edition of China’s standard map was officially released late on Monday night and launched on the website of the standard map service hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources,” State-run Global Times said in a post on X.

 This map is compiled based on the drawing method of the national boundaries of China and various countries in the world,” the post said.

The map displayed by the Global Times showed Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as South Tibet, and Aksai Chin, occupied by it in the 1962 war, as part of China.

India has repeatedly told China that “Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India”. The map also incorporates as Chinese territory the island of Taiwan and a large part of the South China Sea, both of which China has laid claim to.

China claims Taiwan as part of its mainland and its integration with the mainland is part of a vowed objective of  Jinping.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims over the South China Sea areas.  Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei have all claims over the South China Sea areas.

Earlier this year in April, after China released a third set of names in Chinese, Tibetan and Pinyin characters for Arunachal Pradesh, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had asserted, “Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be an integral part of India.”

While commenting on China’s attempt to show its domination in places belonging to India’s Arunachal Pradesh said: “This is not the first time that China has attempted something like this (changing the names of areas in Arunachal Pradesh) and we have already condemned any such attempts. Regarding Arunachal Pradesh, we had also said that Arunachal Pradesh is an inseparable part of India) and imposing invented names like these will not at all change the reality.”

The latest map was released by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources during the celebration of Surveying and Mapping Publicity Day and the National Mapping Awareness Publicity Week on Monday in Deqing county, Zhejiang province, as per China Daily newspaper.

Chief planner of China’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Wu Wenzhong, said surveying, mapping and geographic information play an important role in boosting the development of the nation, meeting the needs of all walks of life, supporting the management of natural resources, and helping the construction of ecology and civilization.

“The next step will be to accelerate the application of geographic information data such as digital maps and navigation and positioning in the development of the digital economy, such as location-based services, precision agriculture, platform economy and intelligent connected vehicles,” Wu said, as per China Daily.

Zhejiang has in recent years focused on the deep integration of the digital and real economies and has continued to promote the development of the digital economy, according to Li Yaowu, deputy secretary-general of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government.

Beijing had in April this year unilaterally “renamed” as many as 11 Indian locations, which included names of mountain peaks, rivers and residential areas.

This is not the first time that Beijing has employed such tactics. Previously in 2017 and 2021, China’s Civil Affair Ministry had renamed other Indian locations triggering another political confrontation. New Delhi called out China’s expansionist plans then.