By Tsering Dhundup
DHARAMSHALA, July 31: Honourable Indian MP from the border state of Sikkim Dorjee Tshering Lepchaon asked the central government to reconsider the term ‘China border’ and instead use ‘Tibet border during the ongoing session of the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The Rajya Sabha MP belonging to the predominantly Buddhist state also urged the central government to consider the return of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorji to Sikkim. The Karmapa has been living out of India since May 2017.
Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India, Lepcha argued that the 1,400-kilometer stretch from Leh, Ladakh, and Arunachal Pradesh to Sikkim more accurately borders Tibet rather than China. He urged the Indian government and military agencies, including the Indian Army and the Border Roads Organization (BRO), to officially recognise this distinction. “This is not the China border, this is Tibet border” Lepcha said.
Lepcha highlighted that there is a disparity in development along the border regions, pointing out that while China has built villages and infrastructure on its side, the Indian side primarily consists of reserved forests and wildlife sanctuaries with restricted access.
“Near the border regions, China has built villages, while India has used them for reserved forests and wildlife sanctuaries, and has restricted access,” Lepcha said, and asked the centre to issue a directive to its agencies to officially rename the border as the “Tibet border.”
In April, China was preparing to develop 175 border villages on its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) facing Arunachal Pradesh in addition to the 628 “Xiaokang” or prosperous villages near the LAC. In addition to creating these villages, China has undertaken extensive infrastructure development projects in Tibet and areas near the LAC. Experts say that this move is part of a larger effort to construct 900 LAC villages, including 200 near the Indian boundary, which will function both as monitoring points and potential military bases in conflict scenarios with India.
China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) includes expansion of the Tibetan border city north of Arunachal Pradesh, Nyingtri (CH: Nyingchi) phase of the Sichuan-Tibet railway line, preliminary work on the Hotan-Shigatse and Gyirong-Shigatse rail lines and the Chengdu-Wuhan-Shanghai high-speed railway network.
The plan includes upgrading the national highways G-219 and G-318, both of which run parallel to India along the LAC. The G-219 is opposite Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh while the G-318 is opposite Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
Beijing’s dual goals of promoting the integration of Tibet into China and ramping up infrastructure development are seen as a strategy aimed at deepening Chinese influence and asserting its power in the region.
In the 2021- 2022 budget, Arunachal Pradesh earmarked 30 crore rupees to build three border villages in the eastern, western and central parts of the state as tourist hubs through a civil-military partnership as an answer to China’s so-called model villages or xiaokang close to the line of actual control (LAC).
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