When a Passport Becomes a Border Dispute

The moment Pema Wangjom Thongdok’s passport slid across the counter at Shanghai Pudong on 21 November 2025, a century-old border dispute left the mountains and landed in an immigration booth. She was only transiting—London to Japan, two hours on the ground, Indian passport, Japanese visa, everything in order—yet the officer saw “Arunachal Pradesh” under place of birth and declared the document invalid.

The recent incident involving Pema Wangjom Thongdok, an Indian citizen from Arunachal Pradesh, highlights the deep-seated geopolitical frictions between India and China, particularly over territorial claims.

Chinese immigration officials reportedly declared her valid Indian passport “invalid” because her birthplace—Arunachal Pradesh—was listed, asserting that the region is Chinese territory (referred to by Beijing as “Zangnan” or South Tibet).

From an Indian viewpoint, this episode is not just a personal injustice but a blatant affront to national sovereignty. Arunachal Pradesh has been an integral part of India since independence, with its people holding full citizenship rights, including internationally recognized passports.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) swiftly condemned the “arbitrary detention,” issuing demarches to Chinese authorities in Beijing and New Delhi, and reaffirmed that “no amount of denial by the Chinese side is going to change this indisputable reality.”

Crucially, China reiterated its longstanding position that Arunachal Pradesh is an “inalienable part” of its territory, illegally occupied by India—a claim rooted in historical assertions over Tibet and rejected outright by New Delhi.

To most Indians this was not a bureaucratic hiccup; it was a calculated insult, the latest in a long list that includes Beijing renaming Arunachal towns, building villages along the Line of Actual Control, and once issuing stapled visas to the state’s residents.

When the foreign ministry in New Delhi says “no amount of Chinese denial will change the indisputable reality,” it is speaking for a billion and a half people who feel their sovereignty was mocked in real time. The fact that China’s own 24-hour visa-free transit rule should have let her walk straight to the gate only rubs salt in the wound.

Beijing, of course, sees it through the opposite end of the telescope. Spokesperson Mao Ning’s briefing was a masterclass in cool detachment: no detention, no harassment, just lawful border inspection; the traveller was given food, water, and a place to rest; everything done by the book.

Then the inevitable coda—“Zangnan is China’s territory; China has never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh illegally established by India.”

From that standpoint the passport was inaccurate on its face, and no Chinese officer can be asked to pretend otherwise. It’s the same logic China uses for Taiwan passports or any document that crosses its cartographic red lines.

Consistency is maintained, sovereignty is signalled, end of discussion.Both countries are being perfectly faithful to their own maps, which is precisely why an ordinary woman spent nearly a full day trapped in an airport.

The clash is not about the facts of her treatment—18 hours is a long time however nicely you’re fed—but about two irreconcilable truths colliding in the fluorescent light of an immigration hall.

Neither side is going to redraw its borders tomorrow, but travellers shouldn’t have to pay the emotional and practical price for a frozen conflict. A quiet, face-saving protocol is all it would take: accept each other’s passports for simple transit without implying recognition of the underlying claim.

Dozens of countries already manage exactly that over Taiwan, Kosovo, Palestine, Western Sahara. Pride wouldn’t even notice the dent.Until that modest fix arrives, the advice is painfully straightforward. If your passport says you were born in Arunachal Pradesh—book your next connection through Dubai, Doha, Singapore, or Seoul.

Pema Wangjom Thongdok only wanted to change planes. Instead she became the human collateral damage of a dispute neither she nor the immigration officer invented. That, more than any official statement, is the clearest indictment of where things stand between Asia’s two giants today.

The real loser here is an ordinary woman who just wanted to change planes. She became a pawn in a decades-old dispute neither she nor most Indians and Chinese asked for. These incidents keep happening because the border issue is still unresolved and both sides keep finding creative ways to remind the other of their red lines.

A practical fix wouldn’t be hard: a quiet agreement that passports from Arunachal (and, for symmetry, from places China considers sensitive) are accepted for transit without drama.

In a world of fluid borders, such incidents remind us that true security lies in mutual respect, not territorial taunts.

Naorem Mohen

Naorem Mohen is the Editor of Signpost News. Explore his views and opinion on X: @laimacha.