Hours after China refuted claims that a woman from Arunachal Pradesh was harassed and detained at Shanghai airport due to her Indian passport, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) affirmed that the state is an “integral and inalienable part of India”.

“No amount of denial by the Chinese side is going to change this indisputable reality,” MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.

An Indian woman, Pema Wangjom Thongdok, was harassed at Shanghai airport earlier this week, with Chinese officials insisting that her passport was ‘invalid’. Beijing had denied the claim and insisted that immigration officials had been following protocol. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson went a step further to insist that Arunachal Pradesh was its own territory.

‘China had never recognised Arunachal Pradesh as part of India’

Addressing the accusations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said “China has never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh illegally set up by India”.

The woman, identified as Prema Wangjom Thongdok, had narrated her ordeal in a number of social media posts, claiming that her three-hour transit halt at Shanghai turned into an 18-hour ordeal after Chinese immigration officers declared her Indian passport “invalid”.

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Thongdok, who was travelling from London to Japan, could later contact the Indian consulate in Shanghai through her friend in the UK and consequently departed on a late-night flight, reports claimed.

What else did China say in its clarification?

Referring to Thongdok, Ning said she was also not detained and that the airline provided her with food, water and a place to rest.

India lodges strong protest

Indian officials said they had filed a strong diplomatic protest with Beijing on the same day the incident took place.

The protest was lodged both in the Chinese capital and at the Chinese Embassy in Delhi. India told China that Arunachal Pradesh is “indisputably” a part of India and that its residents have every right to hold Indian passports and travel without restrictions.

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What is China’s stand on Arunachal Pradesh?

China has repeatedly referred to Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan or ‘South Tibet’. It does not recognise Arunachal Pradesh as an Indian state and has consistently disputed the McMahon Line, which India considers the legitimate boundary.

Beijing claims that Arunachal Pradesh is historically and culturally linked to Tibet, which China asserts sovereignty over.

In recent years, China has actively reinforced its claims by renaming numerous locations in Arunachal Pradesh with Chinese names, a move India strongly condemns as a propaganda effort with no legal basis.