The US Department of War's annual report to the Congress, which notes that China's conceptualisation of 'core interests' has expanded to now include Arunachal Pradesh, should be a matter of concern for India.
The formulation of 'core interests' is said to have entered Chinese diplomatese around the 2000s. In 2003, the then Chinese Foreign Minister, Tang Jiaquan, had told his US counterpart that Taiwan was China's core interest and that it was important to handle this since it would have implications for the broader Sino-US relations. Later, reacting to a decision by the US to sell a radar system to Taiwan in 2004, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said that China would not tolerate actions of foreign powers that would damage its core interests. It also evoked the tenet of 'core interest' after then French President Nicolas Sarkozy met the Dalai Lama in 2008, asserting that Tibet concerned Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity. In the 2010s, Japanese media outlets interpreted China as expanding its ambit of 'core interests' to include the Diaoyu-Senkaku islands.
An Old Controversy
The Chinese began to up the ante on Arunachal in the mid-2000s. The then Chinese envoy to India asserted that the entire state belonged to China. A bureaucrat serving in Arunachal was denied a visa in 2006, and following this, the practice of granting travel approvals issued on a piece of paper stapled to the passport began. In 2009, China even opposed a loan by the Asian Development Bank for a water project in Arunachal, questioning India's sovereignty over the state.
The issue of Arunachal has also increasingly been in focus since China's military standoff against India began in 2020. In 2021, Beijing had raised objections to then-President Venkaiah Naidu's visit to the state. A year later, in December 2022, things came to a head after China tried to militarily change the status quo in the Yangtse area in Arunachal's Tawang sector.
The Chinese have also started using the term 'Xizang' for Tibet, and consequently refer to Arunachal Pradesh as 'Zangnan', meaning south Tibet. Over the last couple of years, they have resorted to a series of renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh, and giving them Chinese names. Official Chinese maps, too, show China as subsuming large parts of Arunachal.
Delegitimising Indian Nationality
In November last year, when an Arunachal woman living in the UK was harassed and detained at Shanghai airport during her transit, the officials reportedly told her that her Indian passport was not valid and asked her to obtain a Chinese travel document. Surprisingly, the woman had had a smooth run during her travel to China in October 2024. On this issue, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asserted that Zangnan (Arunachal) belongs to China, and that it has never recognised the "so-called Arunachal Pradesh". The Chinese ambassador to India, too, has backed this stance, saying that it was important to address the issue of the contentious Line of Actual Control (LAC).
In another case that received less media attention, an Indian-born Tibetan who was visiting China for tourism was meted out similar treatment again at Shanghai airport in December 2025. During his detention, he was repeatedly quizzed about how he obtained Indian citizenship and if he had any relatives in China. Officials went through his personal belongings, social-media accounts and even his cellphone. The tourist also claimed the Chinese authorities took photographs of his family members. He then booked himself a plane ticket to Bangkok and was escorted by Chinese law enforcement officials on the flight.
New Delhi has been firm with its position that Arunachal Pradesh is an inalienable part of India and that its residents are within their rights to travel on Indian passports. This assertion has been followed by the government seeking reassurances from the Chinese authorities that Indian nationals, regardless of their place of birth, will not be selectively targeted as they travel or transit through China. The government has also cautioned Indian nationals to exercise "discretion" whenever travelling through China, although a formal travel advisory has not been issued.
The expansion of Chinese core interests to include Arunachal does not augur well for India, since tying it to sovereignty and territorial integrity will make the resolution of the LAC issue even more protracted and complicated.
Second, China's rhetoric on Arunachal has been endorsed by Pakistan, too. This development, coupled with Beijing taking the initiative to convene a trilateral with Islamabad and Dhaka in June 2025, is another challenge.
Lastly, of note and concern must be Muhammad Yunus's 'gift' to a Pakistani general: a distorted map depicting states in India's north-east needs.
India should be cautious of the possibility of China's new 'low-risk-high-returns' approach towards the border: delegitimising the nationality of Indian travellers from Arunachal and the use of proxy actors acting at its behest. All of this must force New Delhi's attention towards securing the strategic Siliguri corridor that links India's North-East to the rest of the country.
(Harsh V Pant is Vice President, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Kalpit Mankikar is Fellow, China Studies, at ORF)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
