China is back to stapling visas to Arunachal travellers

[Nalwa]

Two Arunachal men get stapled China visas, stopped at airport

ITANAGAR: In a departure from past practice, China has begun issuing visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh, over which it lays claim, but they are stapled to passports as in the case of people from Jammu and Kashmir.

China's new tactics came to light when two sportsmen from Arunachal Pradesh were prevented by immigration officials from boarding a flight today from New Delhi to Beijing since they had stapled visas issued by the Chinese Embassy on their passports.

Indian Weightlifting Federation's Joint Secretary Abraham K Techi along with a weightlifter of the state were taken aback when immigration officials at New Delhi's IGI Airport stopped them and turned the two men away because of the stapled visas issued by the Chinese Embassy.

Techi and the weightlifter, who were to visit the country at the invitation of Chinese Weightlifting Association president Menguang for the January 15-17 China Weightlifting Grand Prix at Fujian province, thereafter got in touch with the Chinese Embassy.

Reacting to the Chinese action, the Ministry of External Affairs said India considers Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India and has conveyed to the Chinese side that a uniform process of issue of visas to Indian citizens be followed regardless of applicant's ethnicity or place of domicile.

Maintaining that both the athletes are reportedly domiciles of Arunachal Pradesh, the Ministry recalled that a travel advisory had been issued in February, 2009 cautioning Indian citizens that Chinese visas stapled to passports were not valid for travel outside the country.

Needling India, China started issuing stapled visas to people from J and K from later part of 2008 in an attempt to project it as a disputed area. In the case of residents of Arunachal Pradesh, visas were never issued till now as China claims the whole of the north-eastern state as its own.

The contentious issue of stapled visas for residents of J and K had figured during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi last month. Wen had said that China takes India's concerns on the issue seriously.

Techi told PTI the Chinese officials at the Embassy informed him that the 'right' visas have been issued to them.

"This is an insult and unnecessary harassment to Arunachalees," Techi said.

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Needless needling again?

 

[ajay]

India should start defence relationship with Taiwan

 

[graphican]

India should start defence relationship with Taiwan

Yes do it to offend the enemy further you cannot confront already.

 

[subject17]

and Chineses say we are aggressive, serious setback on Indo-sino relations.

 

[Spring Onion]

and Chineses say we are aggressive, serious setback on Indo-sino relations.

wait for sometime. it is possible if its another hysteria case by Indian orange media

 

[StingRoy]

The Chinese will never learn how to maintain good relations with their neighbors.

 

[ChinaRocks]

good move by china, need to keep up the pressure

 

[Paan Singh]

let the official discussion take place to resolve this issue.we can hope some results

 

[ChinaRocks]

As long as dl and his supporters still in india, any chinese provocation is justified

 

[Guest]

a constructive way to solve this:
find out when and then why China do this; undo the "why" and then this will be solved.

a destractive way to escalate the problem:
one China policy was "missed" in Wen's visit,in return, China anounce that she shared a 2000-KM-long border with India.

a final resolve to this problem:
just ingore it.

 

[ChinaRocks]

The Chinese will never learn how to maintain good relations with their neighbors.

you sure know how to keep a good relation by continously support the tibetans government in exile

 

[StingRoy]

you sure know how to keep a good relation by continously support the tibetans government in exile

Do you have any other issue other than Tibet as a counter argument? I am waiting...
(btw .. this issue has been discussed to death in this forum that there is no official support to the Tibetan govt in India)

So should we start issuing stapled visas to people from Tibet AR?

 

[ArjunaTheWarrior]

good move by china, need to keep up the pressure

this pressure can lead to tit for tat ,,, from india ,,, may be more leverage to Tibetan parliament in exile ,,, that will be far more serious ...

only thing chinese will get after this is similar reply from GOI ...

not a good diplomatic move ... both countries cant afford to show similar maneuvers on military front ...

in long term a bad move by chinese...

 

[fallstuff]

Interesting development. China is upping the chips on the table. Whats the best move for India other than a knee jerk reaction ?

 

[JayAtl]

makes no sense . I can't figure out why, not withstanding the usual suspect of Chinese hyper partism posters claim as to their reasoning here.

Duely noted, had India done something like this to China. you would have Indians posting ' why did we do this, makes no sense ". Indians are more conciliatory by nature.

funny enough, at least we will allow opposition members, sportsmen etc to visit china. the opposite cannot be said of china's policies.