China: "We do not Recognise India's so-called UT of Ladakh".

Reiterating the 1959 Claim of Ladakh as its own, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin from Beijing on Tuesday said, “China does not recognize the so-called Union Territory of Ladakh by India, and opposes infrastructure construction in disputed border areas for military control purposes”.

New Delhi reacted sharply, saying it has “never accepted the so-called unilaterally defined 1959 Line of Actual Control”, and that it is “untenable”.

This exchange between the two sides comes a week after their military commanders met at the Moldo border point facing Chushul following the Moscow agreement between the Foreign Ministers to dial down tensions along the LAC.

“According to the recent consensus reached between China and India, neither side should take any actions in border areas that would complicate the situation, so as not to affect the efforts of both sides to ease the situation,” Wang said, according to China state-run tabloid Global Times.

[The spokesperson’s statement that Beijing “does not recognise the Union Territory of Ladakh” is an escalation in its rhetoric, as compared to its comment last year following the abrogation of Article 370 and the decision to bifurcate the state of Jammu and Kashmir into the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh.]