Outrightly rejecting China’s attempts to violate territorial integrity, India on said Beijing’s latest move to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh will not “alter reality” that the northeastern State is an integral part of India.

On Sunday, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs came up with what it calls standardised names for 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls as Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet. This is the third set of invented names in the State in Chinese, Tibetan and pinyin characters released by China. It comes less than a week after National Security Advisor Ajit Doval obliquely chided Beijing at the SCO NSA meeting that member countries should respect each other’s territorial integrity and avoid use of threat or force in international relations.

Responding to media queries on the issue, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality,” he said.

He also stated “This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outrightly”. To provoke India, China released the first set of six standardised names of places in Arunachal Pradesh in 2017 followed by 15 more names for places in 2021.

India had earlier, too, called out China for inventing names in Arunachal Pradesh and has through out maintained the same position that the northeastern state was and in future as well, will remain an integral party of the country.

The latest attempts to disturb peace comes at a time when there is buzz that newly appointed Chinese Defence Minister, General Li Shangfu, may come to India on his maiden trip in April to attend G20 meeting.

China’s claims

Reacting to India’s criticism, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning claimed at a media briefing in Beijing that “Zangnan (the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh) is part of China’s territory. In accordance with relevant stipulations of the administration of geographical names of the State Council, competent authorities of the Chinese government have standardised the names of some parts of Zangnan. This is within China’s sovereign rights,” she said.

China’s renaming of the places in Arunachal Pradesh came in the midst of the lingering eastern Ladakh border standoff that began in May 2020. Following the standoff, India has bolstered its overall military preparedness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Arunachal Pradesh sector as well.

With inputs from PTI