'Senseless...': India rejects China's renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh

'Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India,' Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in New Delhi.

New Delhi: India on Tuesday outrightly rejected China’s latest attempt to assert its claim on Arunachal Pradesh.

Two days after Beijing assigned Mandarin and Tibetan names to 30 more places in Arunachal Pradesh of India, New Delhi dismissed the move as “senseless”.

“China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts,” Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in New Delhi.

“Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”

The Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Chinese Government on Sunday “standardized” in Mandarin Chinese characters as well as in Tibetan and Roman alphabets the names of the 30 places in Zangnan or the southern part of Xizang (Tibet Autonomous Region), the Global Times, a state-affiliated media outlet of the communist country, reported.

Beijing claims 90,000 sq kms of areas in Arunachal Pradesh of India as part of the territory of China and calls it Zangnan or south Tibet.

China had earlier renamed six places in Arunachal Pradesh of India in Mandarin and Tibetan in April 2017, 15 more places in December 2021 and 11 more places in April 2023.

China moved to assert its territorial claim on Arunachal Pradesh and thus to challenge that of India even as the four-year-long stand-off between its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army along the western sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the de facto boundary between the two nations – in eastern Ladakh could not be completely resolved yet.

Beijing also claims a 2,000 sq km area in the Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. New Delhi claims that China is illegally occupying about 38,000 sq km of India’s territory in Aksai Chin, which borders eastern Ladakh. Pakistan also ceded to China about 5,180 sq km of India’s territory in 1963.

China in April-May 2020 made an aggressive move to unilaterally change the status quo along the LAC – the de facto boundary between China and India – in eastern Ladakh, by deploying a large number of troops of the Chinese PLA. The Indian Army too had to deploy additional troops to resist the Chinese PLA’s move to push the LAC westward. This resulted in a military stand-off.

Though protracted negotiations led to mutual withdrawal of front-line troops by both the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA from some areas, the stand-off could not be resolved at several other points on the LAC so far. Beijing has of late been claiming that the mutual withdrawal of troops by the Chinese PLA and the Indian Army from Patrolling Point 15 (Gogra-Hotsprings area) in September 2022 marked the restoration of normalcy along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. China’s claim appears to be an attempt to subtly build up pressure on India to accept the “new normal” in Depsang and Demchok areas where the Chinese PLA continues to block the Indian Army’s access to several patrolling points along the LAC.

The Indian Army soldiers had on December 9, 2022, foiled an attempt by the Chinese PLA to change the status quo along the LAC – the de facto boundary between the two nations – at Yangtse near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.