China has once again reignited tensions with India by reiterating its territorial claims over Shaksgam Valley in Jammu and Kashmir – an Indian territory illegally occupied by Pakistan, which ceded it to Beijing under a border agreement.
India maintains that the region is an “integral and inalienable part” of India.
Located in a highly sensitive strategic zone, the Shaksgam Valley borders China’s Xinjiang Province to the north and the Siachen Glacier to the east. Part of the Hunza-Gilgit region in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), the valley covers approximately 5,180 sq km—territory that Pakistan illegally ceded to Beijing under the 1963 Sino-Pakistan Border Agreement.
It is part of the Hunza-Gilgit Region of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK).
New Delhi has resolutely rejected this action as unlawful and illegitimate, asserting India’s rightful claim to the territory.
‘1963 Pakistan-China Agreement Illegal’
Asserting that the territory belongs to China, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday said Beijing is “fully justified for China to conduct infrastructure construction” in the region.
“It’s fully justified for China to conduct infrastructure construction on its own territory. China and Pakistan in the 1960s signed a boundary agreement and delimited the boundary between the two countries, which is the right of China and Pakistan as sovereign countries,” she said.
The spokesperson further said that China and Pakistan had signed a boundary agreement in the 1960s and demarcated borders between the two countries and that the settlement was an exercise of the rights of two sovereign states.
According to a Global Times report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning also stressed that the border agreement between China and Pakistan, and the CPEC do not affect China’s position on the Kashmir issue, adding that China’s position on this matter has not changed.
The development came a day after Communist Party of China (CPC) delegation met senior BJP officials in New Delhi to reposition India-China ties following a 2024 LAC disengagement agreement, aiming to thaw relations strained since 2020.
‘GOI siding with our enemy’
The Congress was quick to up the ante against the Modi government, with its leaders, while referring to the meeting between BJP and CPC delegation, alleged that the “GOI is siding with our enemy, who helped Pakistan during Operation Sindoor“.
“Just yesterday, BJP officials met CCP representatives at the BJP headquarters, and reports suggest that the Modi government is allowing Chinese companies to invest in India. Why is this GOI siding with our enemy, who helped Pakistan during Operation Sindoor? Now tell me who is Desh Drohi,” wrote Shama Mohamed.
Congress leader Supriya Shrinate alleged that the BJP was hosting the Chinese delegation despite Beijing’s misadventures in Ladakh.
“China has claimed the Shaksgam Valley of Jammu & Kashmir as its own territory… After Ladakh, how has China managed to intrude all the way here now? Meanwhile, BJP leaders are holding meetings with China’s Communist Party,” Shrinate said on X.
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Calling it “unfortunate”, Congress leader TS Singh Deo said, “The unfortunate thing is that the country is not taken into confidence…This government is not able to take the 140 crore people of the country into confidence. So should you (BJP) remain in power?… There should be transparency…”
During a weekly press briefing, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal called China’s infrastructure buildup through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the Shaksgam Valley “illegal and invalid”.
He said that India has never recognised the “so-called” China-Pakistan boundary agreement of 1963 or the “so-called” CPEC.
“Shaksgam Valley is an Indian territory. We have never recognised the so-called China-Pakistan boundary agreement of 1963. We have consistently maintained that the agreement is illegal and invalid. We do not recognise the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor either, which passes through Indian territory, which is under forcible and illegal occupation of Pakistan,” Jaiswal said.
Officially, China maintains that CPEC is an economic cooperation project intended to promote local economic and social development and improve people’s livelihoods.