China has announced a boycott of the G20 summit scheduled to be hosted by India in Kashmir, a disputed territory between New Delhi and Islamabad.
"China firmly opposes holding any G20 meeting in disputed territory and will not attend such a meeting," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on May 19, referring to the G20 working group meeting on tourism to be held in Kashmir on May 22-24.
India, which holds the G20 presidency this year, has been holding a series of meetings across the country ahead of the group's summit in New Delhi in September. The G20 tourism conference will be held in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.
This is a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, currently controlled by New Delhi. Beijing and Islamabad have both objected to New Delhi hosting the G20 summit in this area. Meanwhile, India said it was free to hold the meetings "on its territory" and has increased security in Srinagar.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin at a press conference in Beijing, China, February 21. Photo: AFP
Pakistan and India both claim all of Kashmir, but each controls only parts of it. The two countries have fought three wars over the territory since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
India-Pakistan relations have been frozen since 2019, when New Delhi changed the status of Jammu and Kashmir, splitting the state into two federally controlled territories.
Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim-majority territory. Despite a ceasefire agreement reached by India and Pakistan in 2003, fighting continues between troops on the Kashmir border.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has said the decision to remove special status for Jammu and Kashmir was necessary to boost economic development and integrate the region with the rest of the country. New Delhi is promoting tourism in Kashmir, with more than a million Indians visiting the region last year.
Srinagar city and Kashmir region. Graphic: AFP
China-India relations have also been strained since a military clash in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas in 2020, which left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers dead.
India and China then sent tens of thousands of troops and equipment to reinforce the border area in Ladakh. The two countries agreed to withdraw most of their armed forces from the disputed area to cool down the situation after many negotiations.
On May 19, in a message rejecting objections from Islamabad and Beijing, New Delhi said "peace and stability on the border are essential for normal relations with China".
Speaking to the media before leaving for Japan to attend the ongoing G7 summit in Hiroshima, Prime Minister Modi said relations between nuclear-armed neighbors can only be based on mutual respect. "India is fully prepared and committed to protecting its sovereignty and dignity," Modi told Nikkei Asia .
The G20 is a group of 20 of the world's leading economies. Along with the G7, it is an important international organization for coordinating policies and activities ranging from responding to climate change to dealing with foreign debt.
Duc Trung (According to Al Jazeera )
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