NEW DELHI, Nov 14 (AP) -- China's ambassador to India reiterated his country's claim to a wide swath of northeastern India, prompting a sharp rebuke from Indian officials Tuesday, barely a week before the Chinese president's visit.

India and China fought a war in 1962 over northeastern India's Arunachal Pradesh state and the Aksai Chin region of the northwestern state of Jammu-Kashmir.

China grabbed territory in both areas in the war, but did not get all it wanted and still claims the land that it failed to take.

Chinese Ambassador Sun Yuxi repeated the claim in an interview broadcast Monday night, telling the CNN-IBN news channel that "the whole of what you call the state of Arunachal Pradesh is the Chinese territory. ... We are claiming the whole of that."

Early Tuesday, Indian officials struck back.

"Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.

Arunachal Pradesh Governor S.K. Singh said the Chinese envoy should not be "negotiating through the media."

Sujit Dutta, an expert on Chinese affairs, said India knows China's position because its maps continue to show Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.

"The important thing is that the raising of the issue just before the Chinese president's visit does not add to the climate that should be positive," said Dutta, who is associated with the government-run Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to visit India Nov. 20-23. He is slated to travel to the capital, New Delhi, as well as the cities of Agra and Mumbai, said a statement from India's External Affairs Ministry.

Hu will call on the Indian President A.P.J. Kalam, and hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders.

The visit is a part of high-level exchanges between the neighbor countries in recent years.

India and China have long had adversarial relations. Their territorial dispute covers 125,000 square kilometers (50,000 square miles) of land along their mountainous frontier.

India says China still controls 41,440 square kilometers (16,000 square miles) of its territory in Kashmir, while Beijing claims land in Arunachal Pradesh, which shares a 1,050-kilometer (650-mile) border with the Chinese region of Tibet.

Relations have warmed in recent years and the two countries have expanded economic ties, planning collaboration in oil exploration and information technology.