China has again triggered fresh diplomatic friction with India by renewing its cartographic claims over the strategically sensitive Shaksgam Valley in Jammu and Kashmir and asserting that its infrastructure projects in the area are “beyond reproach”, reigniting tensions days after India asserted that the area is its sovereign territory and warned it would take all necessary measures to protect its interests.
Responding to queries on India’s positon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday said it is “fully justified” for China to undertake construction on what it regards as its own soil. She added that the boundary between China and Pakistan was formally delimited through an agreement reached in the 1960s, describing the pact as a valid arrangement between two sovereign nations.
Mao further said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is aimed at boosting regional development and livelihoods, and stressed that neither CPEC nor the border agreement alters China’s long-held position on the Kashmir question.
Her remarks follow New Delhi’s strong statement issued last week, in which India asserted that Shaksgam is Indian territory. The Ministry of External Affairs said it does not recognise the 1963 China-Pakistan boundary agreement, calling it “illegal and invalid,” and stated that India reserves the right to take steps to safeguard its interests. New Delhi also reiterated that it opposes CPEC projects passing through what it considers sovereign territory.
“Shaksgam Valley is Indian territory. We have never recognised the so-called China-Pakistan ‘boundary agreement’ signed in 1963. We have consistently maintained that the agreement is illegal and invalid,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said last Friday. “We also do not recognise the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which passes through Indian territory that is under forcible and illegal occupation of Pakistan,” he said.
The exchange has once again underscored the deep sensitivities surrounding the region, where overlapping claims and competing infrastructure ambitions remain a point of contention between the two Asian neighbours.
The Shaksgam Valley, also known as the Trans Karakoram Tract, is a strategically sensitive, high-altitude region situated north of the Karakoram range, bordering China’s Xinjiang province and lying close to the Siachen–Aksai Chin belt. Part of the Hunza-Gilgit area in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the valley became a point of contention after Pakistan, in 1963, illegally ceded 5,180 sq km of Indian territory in the valley to China under a bilateral border agreement. India has consistently rejected this move as illegal and without any legal standing, maintaining that the area remains an integral part of its sovereign territory.
