China's refusal to issue visa shocks Arunachal

Guwahati, May 26: Arunachal Pradesh today expressed shock over China's refusal to issue visa to one of its IAS officers, which has threatened to snowball into a major international issue.

India cancelled a China tour by IAS officials, which was supposed to start today, after Beijing pleaded inability to grant visa to an officer from the Arunachal Pradesh cadre as the area was ''disputed''.

Citing it as a shocking incident, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu expressed his concern over the development.

Delhi too protested China's decision and called off the visit of the entire group of 102 officers. The team, said to be from the 1990-91 batch, was supposed to have left for China this morning.

In Arunachal Pradesh, Mr Khandu, who had recently replaced long time Chief Minister Gegong Apang, reacted strongly to this development and was consulting his senior ministerial colleagues as well as officials over the latest development from Tawang, where he had been visiting. The Arunachal Pradesh wanted the ministry of External Affairs to pursue the case more vigorously.

According to a report from New Delhi, the foreign ministry was, however, reluctant to comment, only saying that ''the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh was an integral part of India''.

Meanwhile, China's ambassador to India Sun Yuxi told a private TV channel: ''If any Indian citizen wants to visit China, he is welcome, but (as) this province (of Arunachal Pradesh) or so-called state falls in a disputed area, any state official would be difficult for us to accept as an official.'' The cancellation of the study tour was a big blow to the ''in-service training'' of the department of personnel and training, which had wanted to send the batch of IAS officers to China for about seven to 10 days. On their return, the officers were expected to make presentations to their respective ministries and state governments.

India and China had a 4000 kilometre boundary bifurcated by McMohan line but there were disputes in Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh. China had been claiming territory around historic Tawang town, which India was refusing.

In fact Indian Army Chief Gen J J Singh had just returned from China, while Arunachal Pradesh was trying to open a new border road through Kibitho-Rima, the lowest point of the Indo-China border.

This was the second time in a year that the Chinese ambassador had been in the limelight over the territorial question of Arunachal Pradesh.

On the eve of the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao last November, he claimed that the state was a part of China.

UNI