NEW DELHI: India responded Saturday to China’s newly revised passports that show disputed territory near their shared border as part of China by issuing Chinese citizens visas embossed with New Delhi’s own maps.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid says the Chinese passport map showing India’s Arunachal Pradesh state and the Himalayan region of Aksai Chin as part of China is “unacceptable.”
India retaliated by starting to issue visas to Chinese citizens with a map of India that includes all territories claimed by New Delhi.
The new Chinese passports have also upset the Philippines and Vietnam because they show disputed parts of the South China Sea as belonging to China.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are set to meet Dec. 12 to discuss claims in the South China Sea and the role of China.
In New Delhi, China is viewed with suspicion as a longtime ally and weapons supplier to Pakistan, India’s bitter rival. For Beijing, the presence in India of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and 120,000 other exiles from Tibet remains a source of tension.
India says China controls 41,440 square kilometers (16,000 square miles) of its territory in Aksai Chin in Kashmir, while Beijing claims that the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which shares a 1,050-kilometer (650-mile) border with the Chinese-run region of Tibet, is rightfully Chinese territory.
India and China fought a brief border war in 1962, and large stretches of the India-China border are still undemarcated.
The territorial disputes remain unresolved despite 15 rounds of talks, but relations have improved in recent years as China and India’s trade has grown exponentially to reach more than $75 billion last year.
However, the trade remains heavily skewed in favor of China, which is now India’s biggest trading partner.
India says China’s new passport maps unacceptable
India says China’s new passport maps unacceptable
WHO chief says reasons US gave for withdrawing ‘untrue’
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO
- And in a post on X, Tedros added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue”
GENEVA: The head of the UN’s health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing US criticism of the WHO as “untrue.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that US announcement this week that it had formally withdrawn from the WHO “makes both the US and the world less safe.”
And in a post on X, he added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue.”
He insisted: “WHO has always engaged with the US, and all Member States, with full respect for their sovereignty.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO.
They accused the agency, of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”
The WHO has not yet confirmed that the US withdrawal has taken effect.
- ‘Trashed and tarnished’ -
The two US officials said the WHO had “trashed and tarnished” the United States, and had compromised its independence.
“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in a statement.
“As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith.”
The agency strenuously rejected the accusation from Rubio and Kennedy that its Covid response had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures.”
Kennedy also suggested in a video posted to X Friday that the WHO was responsible for “the Americans who died alone in nursing homes (and) the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates” to wear masks and get vaccinated.
The US withdrawal, he insisted, was about “protecting American sovereignty, and putting US public health back in the hands of the American people.”
Tedros warned on X that the statement “contains inaccurate information.”
“Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence,” the agency said.
“WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns,” it added.
“We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.”
- Withdrawal ‘raises issues’ -
The row came as Washington struggled to dislodge itself from the WHO, a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to that effect.
The one-year withdrawal process reached completion on Thursday, but Kennedy and Rubio regretted in their statement that the UN health agency had “not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation.”
WHO has highlighted that when Washington joined the organization in 1948, it reserved the right to withdraw, as long as it gave one year’s notice and had met “its financial obligations to the organization in full for the current fiscal year.”
But Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, and is behind around $260 million.
“The notification of withdrawal raises issues,” WHO said Saturday, adding that the topic would be examined during WHO’s Executive Board meeting next month and by the annual World Health Assembly meeting in May.
“We hope the US will return to active participation in WHO in the future,” Tedros said Saturday.
“Meanwhile, WHO remains steadfastly committed to working with all countries in pursuit of its core mission and constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right for all people.”
