China has informally conveyed a verbal complaint about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh last week. The objection was raised at a junior diplomatic level in Beijing earlier this week during an informal meeting.

India, on its part, reaffirmed its stand that Arunachal is an integral part of the nation. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Mumbai: “Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of our country. We are having regular representation in our Parliament elected by people of Arunachal. Therefore, it is obvious that the Prime Minister will visit any part of the country,” Mukherjee told reporters in Mumbai.

Top government sources denied that any formal protest has been lodged so far. It was also confirmed that no written communication on the matter has been received through diplomatic channels in either Beijing or New Delhi. But with officials busy with celebrations of the Chinese New Year, New Delhi is waiting to see whether Beijing would choose to escalate the mater to a more formal level.

As reported in The Indian Express, China lodged a formal protest against troop movements in Sikkim within days of Manmohan Singh’s visit to the country in January. Immediately after Singh’s visit to the country, Beijing sent a diplomatic protest to New Delhi claiming that Indian troops are building structures along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and are trying to be active on the Chinese side.

The protest surprised India as it had informed China about the movement of troops and an “operational alert” at the Sikkim-based 27 Mountain Division as it was repairing its installations after a seven-year deployment to Jammu and Kashmir. The reopening of claims in Sikkim came after heightened Chinese activity along the LAC and the destruction of unmanned Indian bunkers near Doka La on the India-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction last November.

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