Last week, a riot broke out between Hindu and
Muslim families over a divisive Facebook post about a holy site in West
Bengal, a state in eastern India, which led the government to send
hundreds of paramilitary forces to the area to assist the local police.
On top of the domestic strife, India and China,
the world’s top two emerging economies, were engulfed in perhaps their
worst military stand-off in 30 years along a contested part of the
border between China, India, and Bhutan in the Himalayas.
The official alert, published on the embassy’s
website on Friday, asked Chinese citizens in India and those travelling
to the country to keep a close eye on local security situations, reduce
unnecessary outdoor activities and abide by local laws and religious
habits.
More than 170,000 Chinese travel to India every year. The embassy alert will be in effect for one month.
Relations between China and India have soured in
recent years, with India seeing China’s growing influence in South Asia
as a threat to its own interests.
In particular, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s
ambitious plan to seek economic and diplomatic influence with outbound
investment, the “Belt and Road Initiative”, has angered New Delhi, which
did not send representatives to a summit for the scheme in Beijing in
May.
Last month, when China started building a road
in disputed territory also claimed by Bhutan, New Delhi sent Indian
soldiers to a border town.
The stand-off is now in its third week, with each side deploying about 3,000 troops along the disputed frontier.
Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
discussed several issues informally on the sidelines of the Group of 20
summit in Hamburg on Friday.
On Saturday, Li Fan, a political counsellor from
the Chinese embassy in India, told Phoenix TV that the security
situation remained tense with little sign of it easing soon.
Source: South China Morning Post by Sidney Leng
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