Anurag Kumar
It is now official that Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the G-20 summit in New Delhi on September 9-10, but will instead dispatch Premier Li Qiang in his place.
According to credible sources, Premier Li Qiang will fly directly to New Delhi after attending the 43rd ASEAN summit in Jakarta from September 5 to 7. Flight plans for the VVIP aircraft have been submitted, but the Ministry of External Affairs is still awaiting official notification.
While the Modi government remains tight-lipped regarding the reasons for President Xi’s absence from the G-20 summit, it is perturbed by China’s publication of the so-called standard map of the Communist nation, which incorporates portions of Aksai Chin and the entirety of Arunachal Pradesh as a result of its cartographic expansion.
The timing of the map’s release raised significant concerns about Jinping’s attendance at the Delhi power summit. Beijing publishes an annual standard map, but this is the first time that New Delhi has lodged a strong protest over map issues, refuting the claims of the Communist nation.
It is unclear why China released the controversial map and used its propaganda apparatus to promote it. At the recently concluded BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a brief conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which he voiced severe concern over the situation along the Line of Actual Control.
It is believed that Beijing desired a bilateral meeting with India on the margins of the summit in an effort to normalize relations that have been strained since the PLA’s aggression in East Ladakh in May 2020. Due to constraints on Prime Minister Modi’s schedule, the formal meeting could not take place.
PM Modi’s response that normal relations can resume only after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) withdraws from Aksai Chin and Indian Army patrolling rights are restored in Depsang Bulge and CNN junction in Demchok has angered the Chinese president.
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China has indicated through this map that it views India as an adversary and will exert coercive pressure on New Delhi for maintaining close ties with the United States and the Quad powers prior to the G20 summit. It will maintain military pressure along the 3,488-kilometer-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) and arm its client state Pakistan to place pressure on India’s western borders.
