China knows how to provoke its neighbours when they least expect it. Just weeks after India and China were believed to have resolved, at the highest level, the four-and-a-half-year-old standoff in the Ladakh sector, news emerges of a fresh irritant. Xinhua reported that China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has created two new counties under the Hotan Prefecture. All seems fine until one learns that the area belongs to India. Such unauthorised actions undermine established protocols. Any illegal construction or activity in this region is an affront to India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. What’s worse, this claim by China comes days........

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