India, China Bicker Over Visas

Filed in archive Asia on October 3, 2009

2point6billion (a blog that covers issues that impact both India and China) is reporting on a "spat" between China and India over how China issues visas to residents of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir.

...the Indian government has formally protested against the Chinese practice of issuing Indian residents of Jammu and Kashmir with one-sheet visas to enter China without stamping passports. The implication of visas being stamped on loose sheets rather than the passport itself is a political signal that China does not recognize the nationality of the person concerned.

China evidently also uses the practice with Arunachal Pradesh, an area of Eastern India that stretches from Bhutan to Myanmar along the southern border of Tibet.

The implication of China's practice is to question whether these areas are actually part of India.


© Koshur Samchar, Ahmedabad