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The issue brief delves into the contentious matter of China’s renaming of 62 locations in Arunachal Pradesh, India, which has escalated tensions between the two countries. This renaming, culminating in the release of an official map of South Tibet (Zangnan) by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs on March 30, 2024, marks the latest development in a series of exercises aimed at asserting Chinese influence in the region.

The document highlights the significance of this renaming exercise within the broader context of Indo-China relations, drawing parallels to China’s strategic moves in the Indo-Pacific region, where it has established a “String of Pearls” to extend its influence. By standardising names and issuing official maps, China seeks to solidify its territorial claims and potentially pave the way for future administrative control.

Referred to as the ‘Thread of Beads’, this renaming strategy underscores China’s systematic efforts to encroach upon Indian sovereignty and establish a foothold in Arunachal Pradesh. This has been accompanied by longstanding tensions, including the issuance of stapled visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh by China, indicating a pattern of provocations and challenges to India’s territorial integrity.

The brief outlines how China’s actions have far-reaching implications for India’s national security and its long-term development goals, particularly the vision for Viksit Bharat (2047). By propagating narratives about the alleged illegality of Indian occupation in South Tibet, Chinese media exacerbates tensions and increases the likelihood of confrontation in the region.

Drawing from open-source materials, including official communications from Beijing and trending Chinese articles, the brief provides insights into the motivations behind China’s renaming endeavours. Satellite imagery and official Indian government data are used to analyse the impact of these exercises on the ground, highlighting trends and patterns across the four renaming exercises conducted by China. With the case study of Tibet and Bhutan carried in understanding how China carries out these exercises to eventually annex and even occupy sovereign territory.

In conclusion, the issue brief underscores the gravity of China’s renaming efforts in Arunachal Pradesh and their broader implications for regional stability and India-China relations. It calls for a nuanced understanding of China’s long-term strategic objectives and emphasizes the need for proactive measures to safeguard India’s territorial integrity and national security interests.

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With Claude Arpi                                             
 
The Fault Lines is a series by FNVA that discuss developments occurring on our Indian
frontiers. Engaging extensively with the Universities on these regions and bringing them to
the fore.

The episode of the Fault Lines unfolds a riveting exploration into the historical context of the
Sino-Indian boundary, with a particular focus on the Ladakh sector. Claude Arpi, an
esteemed author, Tibet expert, Advisor at FNVA, and Director of the Pavilion of Tibetan
Culture at Auroville, takes center stage as he delves into the intricacies of the region.
Moderated by Professor Sonam Joldan from the University of Ladakh, the episode serves as
a crucial discourse addressed to the academic community, shedding light on the nuanced
dynamics of the Sino-Indian boundary.

The session is divided into two parts on our YouTube handle.

Part 1: Historical Background and Significance of Ladakh in the India-China Boundary: In the
initial part of the episode, Claude Arpi provides a comprehensive overview of the historical
background and significance of Ladakh in the context of the India-China boundary.
Previously part of the India-Tibet border, Ladakh holds a pivotal position in the geopolitical
landscape. Arpi, skillfully navigates through the historical developments, tracing the
evolution of the boundary and setting the stage for a deeper understanding of the Ladakh
sector.

Part 2: Tibet and Tibetans in the Ladakh Sector – Recent Developments and the Dalai Lama’s
Central Role: The second part of Claude Arpi’s discourse delves into the role of Tibet and
Tibetans in the Ladakh sector of the Indian border. He sheds light on recent developments
in the region, unravelling the intricate connections between the current geopolitical
scenario and the erstwhile independent Tibet. He emphasizes the central role played by the
Dalai Lama in this region, adding a layer of complexity to the dynamics between Ladakh,
Tibet, and contemporary China.

Some Key Highlights from this episode:
1. Historical Evolution: He skillfully traces the historical evolution of Ladakh’s
significance in the India-China boundary, offering a nuanced perspective on the
region’s geopolitical importance.

2. Ladakh’s Transition: The discourse unveils Ladakh’s transition from being the India-
Tibet border to its current status in the India-China boundary, providing insights into
the changing dynamics of the region.

3. Tibet’s Influence: He elucidates the role of Tibet and Tibetans in the Ladakh sector,
connecting the historical threads to contemporary developments and highlighting
the enduring influence of Tibet on the region.

4. Dalai Lama’s Central Role: The episode underscores the central role of the Dalai
Lama in shaping the dynamics of the Ladakh sector, emphasizing his continued
significance in the context of the evolving Sino-Indian boundary.

Claude Arpi’s insightful discourse in “The Fault Lines” second episode not only enriches our
understanding of the historical background and significance of Ladakh but also brings to the
forefront the intricate connections between Ladakh, Tibet, and the contemporary
geopolitical landscape. The report encapsulates the multi-faceted dimensions explored by
Arpi, providing a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and enthusiasts seeking a
deeper comprehension of the fault lines in the Sino-Indian boundary, particularly in the
Ladakh sector.

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Hosted by Kate Saunders, FNVA Senior Fellow

Youtube link : https://youtu.be/PbwD9h2eHJE?si=IqqZneyM35vdY5NY 

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on May 9:  “We’re concerned by reports of the spread of mass DNA collection to Tibet as an additional form of control and surveillance over the Tibetan population.”

What if the mass DNA collection in Tibet isn’t only about surveillance in a dystopian police state – but has a further disturbing purpose?  

American company Thermo Fisher Scientific is a key supplier of DNA profiling technology to Chinese police.  

Our guest today, Ethan Gutmann, makes a chilling hypothesis. What if Thermo Fisher has been involved in a process to discover if one person’s vital organs could fit into another person’s body?

Our podcast brings together horrifying research on the killing of Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs for their organs in China. The China Tribunal in London in 2019 concluded that for decades, prisoners have been killed and their organs sold across the world including to people in Western countries and the Gulf states.

In our discussion, Ethan Gutmann talks about his difficult and dangerous research talking to courageous survivors of prison camps in Xinjiang, and how he pieced together evidence of connections between disappearances from the prison camps, and hospitals and transplant centres in China. He describes how green lanes for organ transfers at airports in East Turkestan appeared at around the same time as the construction of new crematoriums in the same area.

Our discussion covers:

1. The alarming implications of Thermo Fisher selling DNA profiling kits to Chinese police. UN Rapporteurs have warned about the risk that so-called ‘health checks’ involving DNA collection in the PRC among Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians and Falun Gong practitioners are then used to create a living organ database. Thermo Fisher said it stopped selling DNA profiling kits to police in Xinjiang in 2019. But it has provided no such assurances with regard to Tibet.
2. Why Ethan required a personal security detail to make a keynote address to the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. This elite body of surgeons has now made a statement saying they do not support their Chinese counterparts in procuring organs from executed prisoners.
3. Increasing international attention on a multi-billion dollar industry in China  has culminated in the U.S. Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023. This specifies the imposition of serious sanctions on any person determined to be funding or facilitating the forced removal of organs, with penalties including imprisonment for up to 20 years.
4. An amendment on organ tourism criminalizing the selling of organs from China has been passed in the House of Commons in the UK. The European Parliament adopted a resolution in May calling on member states to ensure that cooperation agreements with China on health and research respect EU ethical principles, and to revisit their collaborations with Chinese institutions on transplant medicine.  

Ethan talked to us while in London for the first conference of the World Uyghur Christian Union. This was set up by Dr Enver Bugda Tohti, a former cancer surgeon from Xinjiang who has testified with such courage to the practice of forced organ harvesting.

Sources and links:

Ethan Gutmann revealed chilling information about the harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners in his book The Slaughter, and updated findings published in 2016 together with David Kilgour and David Matas (https://www.youtube.com/@EndTransplantAbuse).  

WATCH Ethan Gutmann’s presentation on forced organ harvesting in Xinjiang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hJcmKMEqhY

Independent Tribunal Into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners of Conscience in China Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naJFMfDv3Tc  Final Judgement and Summary: https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ChinaTribunal_-SummaryJudgment_17June2019.pdf 

Human Rights Watch report on how Tibetans have been subjected to so-called ‘health checks’ and the collection of DNA on a mass scale https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/05/china-new-evidence-mass-dna-collection-tibet.

The testimony of Dr Enver Bugda Tohti, Uyghur cancer surgeon, on being compelled to carry out a transplant on an executed prisoner in 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABaLZHIjks8 

How Dr Enver exposed increasing cancer rates in Xinjiang linked to Chinese nuclear testing – documentary, ‘Death on the Silk Road’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PRb8Xcdxp8 

Dr. Jacob Lavee and Matthew Robertson published findings in a peer-reviewed US medical journal mentioned during the interview with Ethan including the following: “71 papers gave explicit descriptions of surgeons appearing to violate the dead donor rule while procuring hearts from prisoners. In plain language, the papers appear to show that the donors, who were prisoners, were alive at the time of surgery, and were killed by the transplant surgeons in the process of heart extraction.” (‘Execution by organ procurement: Breaching the dead donor rule in China’ by Matthew P Robertson, Jacob Lavee, 4 April 2022, American Journal of Transplantation, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajt.16969).

The response from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) :  https://endtransplantabuse.org/international-society-for-heart-and-lung-transplantation-issues-policy-regarding-transplant-abuse-in-china/

Doctors against Forced Organ Harvesting, https://dafoh.org/

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FNVA recently held a 2-day seminar at the India International Centre (IIC) titled as the “Weaponisation of the One China Policy” on the 1st and 2nd of August. The Seminars had a wide array of speakers representing the whole globe and made it clear to all, what the One China Policy is, how is it different from the One China Principle and how it has been Weaponised by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for their own benefit in bolstering their claim over otherwise sovereign territories.

There are 181 countries that mention the One China Policy, this is China’s policy and countries are obligated to sign the One China Policy to pursue diplomatic relations with the PRC. On the question of whether India follows the One China Policy? It hasn’t followed the One China Policy since 2010.

The keynote address was given by Sikyong Penpa Tsering la from the Central Tibetan Administration highlighting that this very policy does not apply to Tibet. He presented proof of this by reading excerpts from the late Lodi Gyari Rinpoche’s book “The Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy: Memoirs of a Lifetime in Pursuit of a Reunited Tibet”.

The seminar had in total 5 chairs who shared and expounded their knowledge on this policy and 13 presentations that showcased the different narratives this policy has. All of which cleared the air when it comes to the Weaponisation of the One China Policy but certain issues still needs to be tackled as Bhuchung Tsering la stated “There is a certain narrative that we were all influenced and illusioned by this policy for a period of time, it is critical now to have a counter narrative on the One China Policy”.

Regarding the OCP there is a larger picture that is emerging not just about Tibet or Taiwan, the latter which was the catalyst of this Policy given the Chinese Civil War in 1945 to 49 and the subsequent dynamics evolving between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China. Having said that, this policy has expanded to not just Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia, East Turkestan but also even the South China Sea now. One Chinese journalist in the Global Times, Shen Shiwei mentioned that Hawaii belongs to China and a day prior to President Xi Jinping visiting Moscow in March this year, Beijing also renamed Vladivostok and other parts of Siberia. Illustrating potential One China areas emerging in addition to Southern Tibet that has already been mentioned since 2005 in the official Chinese documents relating to Arunachal Pradesh which is clearly states as being part of China.

In this context there is now a need for looking afresh on this issue of the One China Policy, there is a pushback that China would insist on acknowledging, supporting and penalize those countries which opposes the One China policy and this is where the title of this seminar is, the Weaponisation of the One China Policy comes into force.

Weaponisation of the One China Policy are mainly in these key areas:

1. Diplomatic pressure:

This pressure is applied on countries which pass the One China policy. Ambassador Vijay Krant Karna from Nepal mentioned the kind of pressure that the Chinese embassies, Diplomatic Corps, Communist Party members and even the Foreign Ministry exerts on countries concerned in implementing the One China Policy.

There is also the three evils that the Chinese have insisted on and put up in the bilateral and multilateral formats like SEO – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization clearly defines these three evils: a. Separatism b. Extremism and c. Terrorism. These were also part of the National Intelligence Law and the National counter terrorism laws that were passed in 2015 and 2017 in China.

Diplomatic pressures also found space at Airlines, Air India used to have a policy that they can never fly to Taiwan as the official carrier. Now that Air India has been privatised, they fly to Taiwan. Likewise, this applied to other official Airlines and is estimated about a hundred Airlines were banned from going to Taiwan previously but since many of these have been privatized now they fly to Taiwan under the globalisation and WTO compliance measures. The issue of coercion is also applied to Western Brands like Nike and BMW and others, as they were coerced on the East Turkestan sanctions because they were Outsourcing cotton products for their models and their textiles. They were also put under pressure and penalized in terms of commercial contracts on this One China Policy.

The shutting down of Embassies or Consulates is another form of diplomatic pressure. France never had any position on the One China Policy but nevertheless sold La Fayette Class frigates to Taiwan recently and its selling of Fighter Jets 15 years ago led to the French Consulate in Guangzhou being shut down showing the extreme length at which Beijing undertakes. 

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) office in Dhaka has been shut down showcasing how they can go to the extent of putting pressure on the host country’s foreign policy. There is only one TECC (this office functions as the de fact embassy) now in India with it being the only one in rest of South Asia, indicating very clearly the pressure that the Chinese exerts as part of its One China Policy. Lithuania had upgraded its TECC Office into Taiwan Representative Office which consequently saw the whole of its Embassy being shut down in Beijing and the Ambassador then who is now the Ambassador to India, Ambassador Diana was declared a Persona non grata then. She had to flee to the airport in order to catch the flight to India. This is another example of the grave lengths to which Beijing charges on in cases where the country concerned violates the One China Policy. China encourages countries to desist from supporting Taiwan Independence or even Tibet Freedom. The latter of this has not been quite popular after the Strasbourg proposals but nevertheless is an issue as well. There are some countries which support Taiwan Independence and for these countries Beijing always has a political response in penalising these actors.

2. Paging Consensus in the United Nations:

Here the PRC utilises what they call the “Paging Consensus” whereby the U.N Charter, Non-interventionism and other forms of agencies have been put forward and manipulated. This is where China pushes their agenda through their Security Council membership – China had exercised VETO power 13 times till now with many of these actually being on the One China Policy, showcasing clearly how the Chinese would use the global power – the United Nations Security Council VETO power in order to shut down any violation of their One China Policy.

3. Economic Reprisals:

This third area of weaponization is Economic Reprisals with it being replicated through the tried and tested method of increasing Tariff. One clear known case was when His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Ulaan Baatar in 2016 and it eventually saw the whole economic structure of Mongolia brought down on its knees by Beijing since they control 93 percent of Mongolia’s trade. They simply shut down the whole country by increasing tariffs here. This subsequently saw Mongolia never inviting the Dalai Lama again. Likewise South Korea, Russia and many other countries followed suit. Botswana has been under pressure from China and they did not provide the visa to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. South Africa underwent a similar predicament which led to Desmond Tutu criticising his own government for not providing a visa to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. There are cases like this where the restrictions can be exercised on the political and economic levels cutting down on investments, FDI’s, controlling tourism.

4. Controlling the Sea Lanes of Communications (SLOC’s):

Controlling the Sea Lanes of Communications especially in the South China Sea and Maritime areas are important because these are the lifelines for global trade and commerce. And this is where the One China Policy is also important as it affects and impacts Global Commerce.

5. Military Exercises:

Finally the weaponization of the One China Policy is reflected in terms of the military exercises that China conducts. We just saw after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, substantial military exercises were conducted and these were also synchronized actions with other elements of power.

In summary there is a whole set of activities that China is conducting in weaponising the One China Policy and FNVA will continue to bring such programmes in understanding China and the geostrategic region of Inner Asia, where India plays a crucial role in maintaining harmony.

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