US reaffirms Arunachal as India's integral part, condemns China

In a rare bipartisan signal of unequivocal support to India, three powerful Senators introduced a resolution in the United States  Senate that reaffirms that the state of Arunachal Pradesh as an “integral part of India”, supports India’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity. The bipartisan resolution condemns China for the use of military force to change the status quo at the Line of Actual Control and its other provocations. The resolution lauds the Government of India for the steps it has taken to defend itself against the aggression and security threats from China.
The resolution introduced by Jeff Markley and Bill Haggerty and co-sponsored by John Cornyn also supports India’s defence modernisation and diversification, applauds India’s development efforts in Arunachal including improving border infrastructure, commits to deepening US assistance in the region, encourages likeminded partners to bolster their assistance to Arunachal, and expresses support for the US-India bilateral partnership, including the recent initiative on critical and emerging technologies (ICET). The introduction of the resolution, which is titled “Reaffirming the state of Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and condemning the People’s Republic of China’s provocations in South Asia”, is a first step. It has been referred to the SFRC and will be taken up if the chair Bob Menendez so chooses. If it goes through committee, it may go to the floor as either a standalone resolution or as a part of larger legislation.

The resolution says that China claims Arunachal as its territory, terms it “South Tibet” and has invoked these claims as a part of “its increasingly aggressive and expansionist policies”. It then refers to a December 2021 map of Arunachal published by China’s ministry of civil affairs that assigned Mandarin-language names to 15 geographic features, “including eight residential settlements, four mountain peaks, two rivers, and one mountain pass, as well as the names of the administrative regions where each of these are located”. Referring to the recent clashes in the eastern sector, the resolution points out how in December 2022, Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a skirmish in Arunachal along LAC, “the biggest clash in the Eastern Sector in six years”.