India - China: Claim on Arunachal Not Supported by International Law
STORIES, ANALYSES, EXPERT VIEWS
China has once again renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh, this time as many as 27 of them, to reinforce its claim over the Indian State which it calls Zangnan. China claims that its effort to ‘standardise’ the names is fully within its sovereignty. It maintains that Arunachal Pradesh is in South Tibet, and cites the presence of the second-most important Tibetan Buddhism monastery in Tawang and the birth of the sixth Dalai Lama in Arunachal to support its claim.
China’s territorial claims in Arunachal Pradesh and its maritime claims covering most of the islands of the South China Sea, writes Anwar Sadat (Senior Assistant Professor in international law at the Indian Society of International Law, New Delhi) “are grounded in its perspective of international law, which is heavily based on sovereignty…..
“China mixes its content of sovereignty with abundance of historical evidence to support its territorial and maritime claims which are at odds with the established principles of international law and are in contravention of the decisions of international courts and tribunals. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has expressly rejected on several occasions the mode of acquiring territory grounded in the reasoning of consolidation by historical title.”
‘Uti Possidetis Juris’
China’s renaming exercise, according to Sadat “goes against another established principle of title to a territory, the principle of uti possidetis juris (Roman law rule translated as ‘as you possess, so may you possess’) that is the principle that the boundaries of newly independent states should follow those of the previous colonies. China does not recognise the McMahon line, drawn by the British colonial authorities in 1914 at the Anglo-Tibetan Shimla Conference, which established the boundary between British India and Tibet. Though Chinese representatives were present at Shimla, they refused to sign or recognise the accords on the basis that Tibet was under Chinese jurisdiction and therefore did not have the power to conclude treaties.”
The Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso and Mali) judgment by the ICJ in 1986 is illustrative of the principle of uti possidetis juris. “The ICJ gave priority to the principle which accords preeminence to legal title over effective possession as a basis of sovereignty, and whose primary aim is to secure respect for the territorial boundaries which existed at the time when independence was achieved. The ICJ emphasised both its general applicability and the function of the principle in preventing ‘the independence and stability of new states being endangered by fratricidal struggles provoked by the challenging of frontiers following the withdrawal of the administering power’ (1986 ICJ Rep. 554, para.20).
In light of the above, Sadat concludes that” China’s assertive stance in Arunachal and the far-reaching pretensions in the South China Sea do not meet the standards of international law.”
Delays on Chinese JV approvals
Indian electronics manufacturing companies are having a hard time securing government approval for completing joint venture (JV) agreements with Chinese firms for technology transfer to make electronics components.
The delay has put their plans in jeopardy ahead of the July 31 deadline to apply for the incentive scheme for electronics components manufacturing.
This comes in the wake of Beijing backing Pakistan in the recent conflict. Chinese partners in existing JVs, which need government clearance, are also wary of this impacting operations that began before Operation Indoor.
