India rejects China’s ‘senseless’ Arunachal act: Giving invented names does not alter reality

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

“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 MEA spokesperson said.
Jaiswal was responding to a query during his weekly press briefing.

The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released the fourth list of standardised geographical names in Zangnan, the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as part of south Tibet, state-run Global Times reported Sunday.

In April last year too, India had reacted sharply when Beijing released the third list of standardised names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh.

The first batch of the standardised names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh was released in 2017 while the second batch of 15 places was issued in 2021.

On March 28, India said Beijing may “repeat its baseless claims” over Arunachal Pradesh as many times as it wants but that is not going to change New Delhi’s position that the state “was, is and will always remain” an integral and inalienable part of the country.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, during his Gujarat visit on Monday, said that “Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will remain an Indian state”.

Addressing a press conference in Surat, he had said nothing will be gained by changing the names. “If I change the name of your house, will it become mine? Arunachal Pradesh was an Indian state, is an Indian state and will remain so in the future. Nothing will be gained by changing names,” Jaishankar had said.