Vajpayee went so far as to use, for the first time, the legal term “recognize” to accept what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as “part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China.” That opened the way for China to claim Arunachal Pradesh (three times the size of Taiwan) as “South Tibet” and reinforced China’s view of territorial issues: Whatever area it occupies is Chinese territory, and whatever territorial claims it makes must be settled on the basis of “mutual accommodation and understanding.”