NEW DELHI (TIP): As the Doklam standoff enters its fourth week, the Chinese embassy here has launched a media blitz to drive home its point that India‘s position on the issue is “groundless”. After its late night statement on Mansarovar Yatra on July 6, the embassy came up with a video in which it sought to explain that it was India that was trying to change the status quo in the region as Doklam+ belonged to China.

“As far as solution is concerned, the Indian troops must pull back to Indian side of the boundary unconditionally and immediately. This is the precondition for any meaningful dialogue between China and India+ ,” Li Ya, the political counsellor with the embassy, said in the video. “We have strong evidence to prove that Doklam belongs to China.

Doklam has always been the traditional pasture for Chinese border inhabitants. Archives of Xi Zang Autonomous Region still retain some receipts of the grass tax paid by Bhutanese herdsmen. Today, the Chinese border troops still patrol there and the herdsmen graze their livestock there, and production and living facilities have been built there,” he said.

Li accused India of crossing a delimited boundary and entering another country’s territory in the name of security concerns, adding that this won’t be acceptable to any sovereign state. Li, who claimed that he had first-hand knowledge of the area, said that based on his knowledge and work “for the past decade”, India’s “position is groundless”.

(PTI)