China’s astronomical observatory plan in Aksai Chin raises brows

BEIJING: China is pushing Japan and South Korea to establish an astronomical observatory in Aksai Chin, a remote part of Jammu & Kashmir that Beijing occupied after the 1962 war and had Islamabad cede parts of the region to it a year later. The move will raise eyebrows in the Indian security establishment.

A Chinese scientist on Sunday said East Asia Core Observatories Association ( EACOA) — with China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as its members — has identified a site in Aksai Chin for the observatory.

Yao told Xinhua news agency the association had surveyed sites in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Pamirs Plateau in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, but the observatory is likely to be set up in “Tibet’’ this year.

The association’s website shows one of its proposed sites in Aksai Chin in Tibet . Ali in Tibet’s Ngari Prefecture that falls within Aksai Chin is the proposed site for the observatory.

“EACOA directors reached a consensus that a review and evaluation meeting are urgently needed among regional excepts, aiming to update EACOA on relevant site survey progress, particularly focus on the sitetesting metrology, instrumentations, procedures and data analysis performed on the candidate site at Ali (Aksai Chin) Tibet,” the association said.

The move comes as Beijing has been asking India to pull out of oil exploration from the disputed areas of the South China Sea off the Vietnamese coast. Experts see the Chinese proposal for the observatory as an attempt to complicate the Aksai Chin dispute by drawing in Japan and South Korea.