India cancelled a diplomatic training trip to China after a civil servant from the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh was denied a visa, the Financial Times reported. A group of 107 Indian Administrative Service officers were due to attend a
mid-career training program in Beijing and Shanghai Saturday. Beijing claims 90,000 square kilometers of land in Arunachal Pradesh, which borders Bhutan and Tibet, but the Indian ministry of external affairs has repeatedly said that Arunachal Pradesh is a part of India. Analysts said the move by China was intended to reinforce its claim to the entire state and not just the disputed tract of land long asserted to be part of Tibet. Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, will visit Beijing later this year, but few expect any breakthrough regarding the border dispute which has been unresolved since a brief war in 1962. Despite the dispute, the blossoming of trade and economic ties between these two countries are ongoing.
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