A woman from Arunachal Pradesh has claimed that Chinese immigration authorities purportedly detained and harassed her for nearly eighteen hours at Shanghai Pudong International Airport after refusing to accept her Indian passport during a transit halt.
In a post on X, Pema Wang Thongdok said she was stopped on November 21 while travelling from London to Japan and was told that her passport was “invalid” because her birthplace, India’s Arunachal Pradesh, was considered “part of China”.
Thongdok wrote that her three hour layover in Shanghai turned into an eighteen hour ordeal.
She said officials at the immigration desk insisted that her Indian passport could not be recognised due to her birthplace.
According to her account, multiple officers claimed Arunachal Pradesh was Chinese territory and refused to acknowledge her Indian citizenship.
Her passport was confiscated and she was blocked from boarding her onward flight despite holding a valid Japanese visa.
She alleged that immigration staff and China Eastern Airlines personnel told her to “apply for a Chinese passport”.
She was denied access to food, airport facilities and official information about her status, reported The Financial Express.
She was handed back her passport only after agreeing to buy a new ticket exclusively from China Eastern Airlines, despite financial losses because of missed flights and hotel bookings.
Confined to the transit area, Thongdok stated that she could neither rebook tickets nor move freely.
Distressed and with limited options, she contacted the Indian Consulate in Shanghai through a friend in the United Kingdom. Consular officials intervened and she was able to leave the airport late at night and continue her journey.
Terming the episode an “insult to India’s sovereignty”, Thongdok appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian authorities to take up the matter with Beijing.
She urged that the government seek accountability and compensation while ensuring protection for all Indians from Arunachal Pradesh who may face similar treatment.
The incident has prompted widespread reactions online.
One user on X wrote “Now that’s unacceptable” while another commented “Nothing will happen... 56 in not enough to stand up against China... it can only boast about how they are better than bankrupt countries” in an oblique reference to Modi.
The incident comes at a time when New Delhi and Beijing appear to be experiencing a thaw in relations.
Indian embassies and consulates across the world have resumed accepting tourist visa applications from Chinese nationals, a process that had been suspended since the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020.
Tourist visa services were reinstated in July this year.
Despite this easing of travel restrictions, Beijing’s long standing practice of assigning Chinese names to locations in Arunachal Pradesh remains a persistent point of contention.
China refers to the region as “Zangnan” or the southern part of Tibet. India has repeatedly rejected these moves. In May, New Delhi said renaming Indian territories cannot change the “undeniable” reality that the state “was, is, and will” always remain an integral part of India.
The statement followed China’s announcement of new names for 27 locations in the state, including mountains, passes, rivers, a lake and inhabited areas.
On 14 May, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that China had persisted with its “vain and preposterous attempts” to name places in Arunachal Pradesh.
In addition to Beijing’s efforts to rename Indian territories, there have been widespread reports of incursions by the People’s Liberation Army into various parts of the Arunachal region.
Local media reports from September 2024 indicated that the People’s Liberation Army had pushed at least 60 kilometres inside Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh.
Photographs from the area showed bonfires, spray painted rocks and discarded Chinese food packaging, suggesting the incursion occurred roughly a week earlier.
The images also displayed year markings, a tactic frequently used by Chinese troops during past transgressions to reinforce Beijing’s territorial claims.
Similar concerns were raised in August 2022 when widely shared visuals showed PLA personnel overseeing infrastructure activity near Hadigra Lake, less than 30 kilometres from Chaglagam, where a long range reconnaissance patrol had detected three excavators and later confirmed the presence of a PLA camp further north.
These incidents form part of a pattern of encroachments along the eastern sector. In 2020, Chinese troops were reported to have entered Indian territory in Dibang Valley district, while in 2019 the PLA constructed a wooden bridge over Doimru Nallah about 40 kilometres inside Indian territory near Amako Camp.
Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,126 kilometre border with China out of the 3,488 kilometre long frontier between the two countries.