Situated in the pristine foothills to the south of the Himalayan Mountains, is the disputed region of
. Largely controlled and administered by India, 84,000 square kilometer Arunachal Pradesh is contested by India and China.
India-China Border Conflicts ..
Arunachal Pradesh (lit. 'Land of Dawn-Lit Mountains') is an
Indian state in
Northeast India. It was formed from the erstwhile
North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of
Assam and
Nagaland to the south. It shares international borders with
Bhutan in the west,
Myanmar in the east, and a
disputed border with China in the north at the
McMahon Line.
Itanagar is the state capital of Arunachal Pradesh. Arunachal Pradesh is the largest of the
Seven Sister States of
Northeast India by area. Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,129 km border with
China's
Tibet Autonomous Region.
As of the
2011 Census of India, Arunachal Pradesh has a population of
1,382,611 and an area of 83,743 square kilometres (32,333 sq mi). It is an ethnically diverse state, with predominantly
Monpa people in the west,
Tani people in the center,
Tai people in the east, and
Naga people in the south of the state. About 45 tribes/sub-tribes live in the state. The main tribe of the state is Adi, Nyshi, Galo, Tagin, Apatani, and so forth. The Mishmi tribe has three sub-tribes, namely Idu-Mishmi, Digaru-Mishmi and Miju-Mishmi.
A major part of the state is claimed by both the
People's Republic of China and the
Republic of China as part of the region of
South Tibet. During the
1962 Sino-Indian War, most of Arunachal Pradesh was captured and temporarily controlled by the Chinese
People's Liberation Army. However, China withdrew back to the
McMahon Line and returned Indian prisoners of war in 1963.
It was described as a dialogue, the first high-level meeting in months between the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers to address the
ongoing border aggressions that have pushed the
two nuclear-armed countries to the
brink of war.
In
June 2020, following several months of
rising tensions along the India-China border in the Himalayan region of Ladakh,
20 Indian soldiers and
reportedly four Chinese soldiers were killed in the deadliest clash between the two countries
in more than 50 years. Forbidden from firing weapons, the two sides instead fought on the icy mountain precipice of Galwan valley in medieval fashion, using
spiked clubs and engaging in
hand-to-hand combat, with
several soldiers falling to their deaths.
The clash did not result in all-out declarations of war, but pledges of de-escalation and multiple rounds of failed military talks have instead been overshadowed by a
year of troop, artillery and infrastructure buildup on both sides of the 2,100-mile border unlike at any other time in history, including when
China invaded India in 1962.
Those hoping Wednesday’s meeting would help break a year-long stalemate ... were left unsatisfied. There was one point of agreement, however. As Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, noted, “relations between India and
China are still at a low point”.
