‘Preposterous’: India rejects China’s latest renaming of places in Arunachal

China claims Arunachal Pradesh is part of southern Tibet.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “We have noticed that China has persisted with its vain and preposterous attempts to name places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Consistent with our principled position, we reject such attempts categorically.”

“Creative naming will not alter the undeniable reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” he said.

China has renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh at least five times in the past. India describes the names as “inventions” by China, and has consistently and unequivocally dismissed them.

Hours after India’s reaction to Beijing releasing the 27 new names, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian argued that the move is within China’s “sovereign rights”. “The Chinese government has standardised the names of some parts of Zangnan. This is within China’s sovereign rights,” he said.

Zangnan is the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh. China claims some 90,000 sq km of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.

In April last year, too, India had reacted sharply when Beijing released a list of “standardised names” of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Chinese Civil Affairs Ministry released the first list of the “standardised names” of six places in 2017. The second list of 15 places was issued in 2021 followed by another list with names for 11 places in 2023.