The news about   destruction of nearly 30,000 world maps in English language showing Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India by the Chinese customs authorities, originally reported by its nationalistic tabloid Global Times and subsequently carried seriously in Indian press may be gripping and sensational, but hardly contains any surprising element.

Arunachal Pradesh has been Beijing’s national obsession for long and it continues to claim it as its essential territorial slice, as a part of south Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) through various diplomatic manoeuvres and of course by depicting   on its official maps. And since this ‘grave mistake’ has occurred, to buttress its ‘territorial integrity’ it has displayed enviable speed and agility to ‘rectify’ it.

It is most of the time baffling for the foreign policy experts and defence analysts to arrive at a conclusion as whom to choose as India’s “Enemy Number One” among   two options- Pakistan or China. Throwing aside the myriad   technical analyses, the pervasive feeling nurtured by any rational Indian is that it is unquestionably China.

Tracking chronologically the events which had China as a party, directly or indirectly, in a descending order to enable easy recollection, it can be easily understood why is China an overwhelming cause of concern for the nation. A couple of weeks before, it had once again blocked a move to designate Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at UN Security Council, underlining categorically its acerbic foreign policy priorities devised for India. PM Narendra Modi’s last month visit to Arunachal was also too spicy for them to digest. It also was reported in January last year that Chinese troops had intruded deep and 200 meters close to a village in Upper Siang district with construction machinery but had to leave when stopped by Indian soldiers. The infamous Doklam crisis of June-August 2017 saw Indian military interventions to block Chinese strategic road construction in an area of disputed ownership between them and Bhutan. Tensions escalated to great heights but somehow an imminent war was averted after eventual retreat of Chinese forces. Again, all Arunachalees must have remembered how China renamed six places of the state in an apparent retaliation against   Dalai Lama’s visit. Experts believe that renaming places is China’s favourite ploy to delegitimise adversaries, practiced many times before also.

There seem to be no logical answer why China, already with such a huge swathe of land and largest world population is still hungry to make further territorial additions. And when it’s sure that their bizarre outlook will hardly change, new foreign   policies with stress on forging of military cooperation with friendly nations must be tried. Military retribution do make deep impacts, Balakot has shown expressly.