By Never short of ideas to demonstrate its imperialism, China has promoted a very particular conception of its borders, in defiance of international law. The map in question shows a number of disputed and undisputed zones.
Not surprisingly, in the South China Sea first. The infamous "9 or 10 dotted line" thus grants Beijing sovereignty over international waters, where incidents are legion between Chinese and neighboring navies, but not only. The delimitation embraces Taiwan, whose independence aspirations are well known, the Spratly Islands claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, and the Paracel Islands, whose ownership is also claimed by Hanoi.
Still to the south, the drawing grants China the state of Arunachal Pradesh (one of India's 28 states) and Aksai Chin, an area in the northwest of the Tibetan plateau, claimed by both countries and the scene of armed clashes between Beijing and New Delhi in 2020. And this at a time when the two Asian giants concluded a "friendly" meeting at the BRICS summit on August 24.
More surprisingly, the new map includes the entire island of Bolshoi Ussuriysk, a territory shared between Russia and China in the 2000s, drawing the ire of Moscow, a great friend of the Chinese Republic.
While it's not uncommon for Beijing to take a soft line on defining the limits of its nation, and the country is in continual dispute over many of its borders, it seems that Xi Jinping's nerve (or poor coloring skills) came as a surprise. The response was swift: India dispatched troops to its borders, while others more or less strongly condemned the Chinese initiative.
