Guwahati, February 21
In an ingenious way to protest much reported ‘China’s claim’ over the frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh, the All-Arunachal Pradesh Students Union (AAPSU) has launched a statewide campaign for boycott of Chinese goods that have flooded the market in entire region, thanks to numerous clandestine trade routes.

Even restaurants in Arunachal Pradesh twin capital cities of Itanagar and Naharlagun have been asked to drop all Chinese delicacies from menu or face stern actions from the students’ body. “Though we are now focusing the campaign against Chinese goods and food items in Itanagar and Naharlagun, the same is being spread to all over the state to register our protest against China’s repeated claim over our state that is very much part of Indian territory,” AAPSU president Takum Tatung told The Tribune over phone from Itanagar.

To drive home that they meant business, AAPSU members earlier this month made a bonfire of Chinese goods in a market complex in Itanagar besides burning effigy of Chinese premier Hu Jintao. They threw a range of Chinese products from mobile handsets, readymade garments to toys to the fire. The AAPSU move against Chinese goods and food has been backed by the Arunachal Chamber of Commerce and Industries.

A source in Kamrup Chamber of Commerce here, the main wholesale traders’ body in the Northeast, said all kinds of goods made in China easily found way to all major markets in the region pushing Indian products out from many markets in hill states.

A visitor from the so called ‘mainland’ India may be in utter surprise when he/she may run into confused look of a shop keeper after asking for any of popular Indian cigarette brands in markets of Imphal, Kohima, Dimapur or Aizawl. Those markets are flooded with popular Chinese brands like Win, Pine and Congress. Choice is yours whether to be a Roman in Rome or not.

Not just cigarettes, but all kinds of ‘foreign-made’ goods have captured the markets of the entire Northeastern region especially in hill states having border with Myanmar and China. Cigarettes, toys, electronic gadgets and household goods such as blankets, mosquito nets, kerosene lanterns, utensils, patent medicines, crockery and a host of Chinese goods are commonplace in the states bordering Myanmar.

Customs officials are at loss how to check flow of these goods, which are good in quality but cheaper than their Indian counterparts. Most people who are into the smuggling trade in Chinese goods enjoy protection from various militant outfits that are also armed with Chinese weapons.

As per the Indo-Myanmar trade agreement signed in April 1995, trade is legally allowed only in 25 items which include pulses, mustard beans, fresh vegetables, fruit, garlic, onions, spices, minor forest products, areca (betel) nuts and leaves, food items for local consumption, tobacco, tomatoes, reed broom, sesame, resin, coriander seeds, soyabean, roasted sunflower seeds, catechu and ginger.