China’s ‘standard map’ is a chilling reminder of its imperial ambitions

The Chinese Communist Party’s ‘standard map’ is updated each year to include Beijing’s ever-extending territorial claims. Neighbours see it as a sinister measure of Beijing’s imperialist threat, but to the party it is a sacred document, a badge of legitimacy, encapsulating its historic grievances and its growing ambition. It must be faithfully reproduced in school textbooks and in government and corporate handouts and plastered to the walls of workplaces and classrooms. 

The timing of the latest edition is unfortunate – or perhaps deliberate – coming just ahead of next week’s summit of G20 countries in Delhi, a meeting that President Xi Jinping intends to snub. It seemed to send a message that China really doesn’t care what its neighbours think. The map shows Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state in the Himalayas, as Chinese, as well as the disputed Aksai Chin plateau. Battles have been fought over both, most recently in 2020, when dozens of soldiers died in high-altitude clashes.