New Delhi, November 27: India has lodged a strong protest with China after an Indian woman from Arunachal Pradesh was detained for more than 18 hours at Shanghai’s international airport when Chinese authorities refused to recognise her Indian passport, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India had issued a “strong demarche” after the woman, Prema Wangjom Thongdok, reported that Chinese immigration officials declared her passport invalid on the grounds that her birthplace, Arunachal Pradesh, was “Chinese territory.”
“Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India, and this is a self-evident fact. No amount of denial by the Chinese side is going to change this indisputable reality,” Jaiswal told reporters.
Thongdok, who was travelling to Japan and transiting through Shanghai on Nov. 21, said on social media that she was held by airport authorities and staff of China Eastern Airlines, who refused to let her proceed. She was released after more than 18 hours.
Jaiswal said Chinese officials had not been able to justify their actions, which he said violated international air travel norms and China’s own regulations that allow all foreign nationals up to 24 hours of visa-free transit.
China’s foreign ministry said earlier that the passenger had been treated in accordance with Chinese laws, without providing further details.
The incident comes just weeks after China Eastern Airlines resumed Shanghai–Delhi flights on Nov. 9, restoring direct air links for the first time in five years following a meeting between Indian and Chinese leaders in August.
India and China have long disagreed over the status of Arunachal Pradesh, with Beijing claiming the region as part of southern Tibet and New Delhi rejecting the claim as baseless.
