China defiant, claims sovereignty over India’s Shaksgam Valley Pakistan illegally gifted Beijing in 1963

Weeks after reasserting its claim on Arunachal Pradesh, China on Monday claimed sovereignty over India’s Shaksgam Valley — illegally occupied by Pakistan during the 1947 invasion of Jammu and Kashmir and ceded to China in 1963. India has consistently rejected the claim.

At a press conference, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that Shaksgam Valley belongs to China and cited a 1963 boundary agreement with Pakistan as justification for Chinese control of the area.

When asked about India’s criticism of infrastructure development in Shaksgam Valley, Mao said “the territory you mentioned belongs to China”.

“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. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), as an economic cooperation initiative, aims at promoting local socio-economic development and improving people’s livelihood,” said Mao.

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Pakistan handed Shaksgam Valley to China in 1963 as part of a boundary agreement. It had previously occupied the area during the invasion of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. India has continued to maintain that Shaksgam Valley, along with the rest of Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK), belongs to India and is under occupation by Pakistan and China.

While the MEA has not yet responded to Mao’s statement, Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said at a press conference on Tuesday that “India considers the1963 agreement between Pakistan and China illegal.

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“Therefore, we do not accept any activity there. What I understand about the CPEC is we do not accept it and we consider that it is an illegal action which is being carried out by the two nations,” said Dwivedi.

Mao’s remarks followed a statement earlier this month by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) about infrastructure development in Shaksgam Valley.

When asked about the Chinese infrastructure build-up under CPEC in Shaksgam Valley, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that it was 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 under forcible and illegal occupation by Pakistan. The entire UTs of J&K and Ladakh are an integral and inalienable part of India,” said Jaiswal.

However, even as China has cited the 1963 agreement to claim Pakistan as a sovereign transferred the area to China, the agreement did not recognise Pakistan’s sovereignty over Shaksgam Valley. Article 6 stated that the agreement would take its final shape upon resolution of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.

Once India and Pakistan have settled the Kashmir dispute, “the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the boundary, as described in Article Two of the present Agreement, so as to sign a formal boundary treaty to replace the present Agreement”, Article 6 said.