A review of high-resolution satellite imagery shows China constructing a new road along a part of the Tibet-India frontier along Arunachal Pradesh that India does not control. The area, however, falls within the McMahon Line, the historic boundary shown by the Survey of India on its official maps.
India and China have significant differences in perception over the coordinates of the boundary line in this area.
While India has never given up its claim to the region which was lost to China in 1959, sources said it presently lies “beyond the Line of Actual Control (LAC)”. In other words, beyond the line that the Indian Army physically patrols and defends.
In 2021, NDTV identified a new Chinese village with approximately 50 structures which had been constructed in the area.
The new road described in this report links this habitation with a new village that China has recently constructed 9.42 km to the west.
The bulk of the new habitation lies in uncontested Chinese territory, narrowly across India’s official boundary line showing Arunachal Pradesh, though a construction plant and two helipads appear to be within India’s original claim-lines. However, this cannot be confirmed since the boundary between India and China has never been officially demarcated.
The area which lies in Arunachal Pradesh’s Upper Subansiri district came into sharp focus earlier this week when a welfare society, representing the Nah tribal community in the district, submitted a memorandum to the deputy commissioner alleging that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has occupied parts of their ancestral grazing, hunting and agricultural lands along the India-China border over the last six years.
The memorandum claims that China has built roads, camps and other infrastructure in the disputed areas.
India is confronting a sustained Chinese campaign to incrementally redraw the Line of Actual Control by constructing military outposts and militarised frontier villages, all linked by new roads across the high-altitude frontier,” strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney told NDTV.
In a statement, the Indian Army has rebutted these claims. “We have seen some media reports alleging recent encroachment by Chinese PLA and setting up of camps in Arunachal Pradesh. These reports are incorrect and without any basis.”
Concerns over China’s encroachment in parts of Arunachal Pradesh are not new. In November 2019, the BJP MP Tapir Gao, had said in the Lok Sabha, “I want to tell media houses in the country that there is no coverage of the extent to which China has captured Indian territory (in Arunachal Pradesh).”
Referring to the India-China standoff in Doklam in 2017 which lasted several months, Gao warned, “If there is another Doklam, it will be in Arunachal Pradesh.”
The new village shown in this report has been under development since 2024 and is linked by a road network “ranging from freshly excavated sections to graded and paved segments,” with “several branches” extending “toward other locations, including a route toward the perceived border with India.”
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