KATHMANDU: Amid the controversy about the ‘inauguration’ of the Link Road to Lipulekh of Nepal joining China and India, a Chinese media has claimed that Mt Everest belongs to China.

The China Global Television Network (CGTN) has tweeted on May 2 claiming that the world’s highest peak, Mt Everest is in China.

The CGTN’s tweet comes at a time when China has sent a team of surveyors and scientists to Mt Everest to measure the peak amid an ongoing ban on climbing the summit because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In pictures?: An extraordinary sun halo was spotted Friday in the skies over Mount #Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak located in China’s #Tibet Autonomous Region pic.twitter.com/wATFz4DXzI

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) May 2, 2020

The claim by the Chinese media has been widely criticized on social media in Nepal and elsewhere, and have urged the media to remove the claim immediately.

The new measurement of the mountain, China claims, is aimed at resolving the question of whether the world’s highest peak had lost its height in the 2015 devastating earthquake that ravaged Nepal.

It should be noted that the widely-accepted elevation of Mt Everest, which straddles Nepal and China, is 8,848 meters (20,029 feet).

The expedition is likely to update the peak’s state of Mt Everest, and known as Qomolangma in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Telecom giants Huawei and China Mobile have earlier announced they had installed 5G antennas at the base camp at the height of around 6,500 meters and at the lower base camp, at 5,300 meters and at 5,800 meters to help the survey.