New DelhiIndia on Friday avoided mentioning its ‘one China’ policy as it opposes unilateral actions aimed at changing the status quo in the country Taiwan Strait in its first official response to the tensions arising from ChinaMilitary exercises after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
The Indian side, which has been locked in a military confrontation with China in the Ladakh sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) for more than two years, has so far maintained measured silence on Pelosi’s visit last week. last to autonomy. island seen by China. As a rebel province, air and sea exercises are conducted by the People’s Liberation Army.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi, without naming China or Taiwan, Overview of India’s position about this in response to several questions from the weekly briefing.
Read also: India must strengthen ties with Taiwan | Opinion
Like many other countries, India is also concerned in recent developments. We call for restraint, avoid unilateral actions aimed at changing the status quo, reduce tensions and strive to maintain peace and stability in the region.
A reporter from the official Xinhua News Agency cited Pelosi’s visit to “China’s Taiwan region” and the support Beijing has received from about 170 countries on the “one China” principle, and challenged question India’s position on the matter, but its spokesman did. . don’t think about this case.
“Relevant Indian policies are well known and consistent,” Bhaji replied.
Read also: Impact of China actions | HT Edition
In response to another question, Bagchi said India had no plans to evacuate the 10,000 Indians living in Taiwan. He noted that all Indian missions around the world had contingency plans for Indians overseas, but said no warning had so far been issued in the case of Taiwan.
Almost all of the other countries that have criticized China’s military exercises in the Taiwan Strait have also acknowledged its “one China” policy regarding their relations with Beijing. India is one of the few countries that has not addressed politics in response to tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
People familiar with the matter say the “one China” principle has not even been mentioned in a joint statement between India and China since at least 2005. The last time the Chinese side pushed for its inclusion in a joint statement was during a visit by the Chinese president to India in 2014.
At the time, the Indian side, out of anger at Chinese policy, failed to comply with issuing “staple visas” to residents of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, some of whom was claimed by China.
A report on Indo-China relations released by the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee in 2018 noted that India is “openly aware of China’s sensitivities when dealing with Taiwan and Tibet”, while “China does not does not show the same respect when dealing with issues of sovereignty.” India. whether in the case of Arunachal Pradesh or in the case of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir .
Since the start of the military confrontation over Latin America and the Caribbean in May 2020, Indian leaders have accused Chinese forces of repeatedly trying to change the status quo in the border region and of violating agreements. and border management protocols. India’s resistance to unilateral changes to the status quo has received support from key partners such as Australia and several European countries.
Although India and Taiwan do not maintain diplomatic relations, the two sides have maintained representative offices in their respective capitals since the mid-1990s to deal with economic, trade, investment, cultural, scientific and technologies.