India cancels entire events to mark 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties with China
DHARAMSALA, 18 Dec: India has cancelled the entire events planned to celebrate the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations with China.
India has cancelled all 70 diplomatic events planned with China to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations after China “cancelled” plans to jointly launch commemorative stamps with India for the same, the republicworld.com reported citing Dinesh K Patnaik, DG of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. (ICCR)
The events, the report said were planned after Chinese President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi met last year in Chennai but “post-Galwan Valley clash, India has decided to cancel these events,” Patnaik has said.
To make the matters worse for Beijing, it was further reported that the “ICCR has now decided to ramp up cultural relations with Taiwan, a bitter rival of China.”
Amidst the ongoing border standoff between the two Asian giants, China’s top postal bureau announced the cancellation of the joint launch of a commemorative stamp with India without giving any reason.
“The State Post Office has decided to cancel the planned joint issue of stamps between China and India in the 2020 special stamp-issue programme,” the one-line statement read.
While China has later blamed India over the cancellation of the event and accused India of not giving any feedback for the launch, India rejected China’s accusation as “factually incorrect”.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that “there had been no discussion on any launch date with any Chinese authorities for this activity.”
“We have also seen the Chinese embassy’s tweet suggesting that this event was cancelled by the Chinese side on account of no feedback given by the Indian side before the launch time agreed by both – this is factually incorrect,” MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said during the weekly briefing.
The 70 celebratory events to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, of which many were to be held in China were agreed upon by New Delhi and Beijing in Nov. 2019 following the second informal summit meeting of their leaders in China, India.
The events included a host of cultural, religious and trade promotion activities besides military exchanges.
