Pakistan’s new Kashmir map links it to China, fuelling India’s fears of war with both

On paper, the map links Pakistan with Chinese-administered territory and hints at the possibility of coordinated military operations between the two

Little evidence exists that such a conflict is in the works, however, and analysts caution the map is driven more by domestic politics

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Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, centre, unveils the country’s updated official map which for the first time includes large parts of Indian-administered Kashmir. Photo: EPA

Published: 6:15pm, 6 Aug 2020Updated: 12:54pm, 7 Aug 2020

Pakistan’s move to unveil a new political map reasserting its claim to all of Indian-administered Kashmir – minus the parts claimed by China – is fuelling New Delhi’s fears of a two-front conflict with its neighbours, despite a lack of evidence that such a move is in the works.

But the release of the map is the latest in a series of conflicts born from cartography which have broken out in the Himalayas since May – from a deadly scuffle between Indian and Chinese soldiers in mid-June to a war of words that began earlier in the summer when New Delhi opened a road through territory claimed by Nepal.

Pakistan’s new map – unveiled almost exactly a year to the day since India’s unilateral decision to strip the part of Kashmir it controls of its semi-autonomy – extends Islamabad’s territorial claim north-eastward up to the Chinese-held Karakoram Pass.

On paper, the map links Pakistan with Chinese-administered territory via the Shaksgam Valley, a part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region ceded to China by Pakistan under their 1963 border settlement. To the east is the Aksai Chin region – the limit of China’s claims in Kashmir which it has controlled since a 1962 war with India.

A map showing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Kashmir region. Image: SCMP

Between the two lies the Siachen Glacier, an undefined area at the northern extreme of the de facto border between Pakistani- and Indian-administered Kashmir known as the Line of Control – not to be confused with the Line of Actual Control, which separates Indian- and Chinese-controlled territory in the region.