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India has dismissed China’s objections to a recent visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims is its territory.

The spat is the latest flare-up in a four-year-long military standoff between the two countries’ that shows no signs of easing.

A day after Beijing lodged a diplomatic protest over Modi’s visit, India’s foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that Chinese objections do not “change the reality that Arunachal Pradesh was and will always be an integral part of India.”

Modi visited the Himalayan state on Saturday to inaugurate a two-lane tunnel built at an elevation of 4,000 meters. It will provide a year-round transportation link to the remote region and facilitate movement of soldiers and military equipment to the border state, where both countries have amassed troops. He also announced several other infrastructure projects that include development of roads and power generation.

https://www.voanews.com/a/india-china-spar-over-modi-visit-to-himalayan-state/7524458.html

What makes Arunachal Pradesh a geopolitical region and geostrategically important for China? It's a territory that both China and India claim, and the ongoing dispute traces back to historical factors, including Arunachal Pradesh's former status as the North-East Frontier Agency under British colonial rule. Additionally, the 1962 border conflict between China and India further exacerbated tensions over the territory, and this tension is still very much present even up to this day.

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  • TBH I'm not sure there is something. Egos and national pride [& superpower aspirations] are probably 90% of that affair. But good Q.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Mar 16 at 22:48

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It would be better if we had a Chinese source on this, but alas those are not so often in English [on such matters], so here's how an Indian source claims the region is important for China:

Arunachal Pradesh is the closest location for India to target China with missiles. Also, Arunachal is the best location for India to deploy a multi-layered air defence system for possible attacks from China. Thus control over Arunachal will give China a strategic advantage.

I don't find that incredibly compelling, but YMMV.

I suspect that China mostly insists on [what it says are] its historic rights rather than geostrategy, but I'm hardly an expert on what China says about this.

I'll also note that even some other Indian sources emphasize something else, e.g.

For Beijing, it is a bargaining chip for an eventual ‘swap’ and the recognition by India of the occupation by China of Aksai Chin.

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