On Tuesday, India responded strongly after China has renamed 11 places in India’s north-eastern border state Arunachal Pradesh in order to make strong their claim as China consider Arunachal Pradesh as a part of South Tibet.
The latest step of renaming places by China is carried out days ahead of planned visit of China’s recently appointed Defence Minister General Li Shangfu to India. He is expected to be present in SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) later this month.
On Sunday, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs had release a statement in which it said ministry with other relevant departments together has standardized names of some geographical places in Southern Tibet.
The names released are in Tibetan, Chinese and in pinyin character and accordance with the State Council (China’s Cabinet) which issue’s regulation on geographical names.
On Monday, Chinese state run media released a report which said that ministry had released official names of 11 places on Sunday which includes five mountain peaks, two rivers, two land areas and two residential areas with precise coordinates. The report further said that it was a third list of names released by the civil affair ministry in Zangnan or Southern Tibet included Arunachal Pradesh.
A map was also released by China which shows India’s state Arunachal Pradesh’s some parts inside the Southern Tibet.
Arindam Bagchi, the official spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs released a statement in which it said that they have seen such a reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt, he said in a statement. They reject this outright. The spokesperson further said in a statement that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will be an integral and inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality, he said in a statement.
Following the statement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said that the name changes were within the scope of their sovereignty.
It was third such an attempt by China of renaming places. The first time name changes were carried out on 13th April, 2017. It had taken place days after Dalai Lama, Tibetan spiritual leader left Arunachal Pradesh as he was on nine-day visit.
The second time was in 2021 when 15 places were renamed in Arunachal Pradesh. Chinese move was dismissed by India and said that the region’s status would not be altered by these kind of actions.
India and China have been indulged in standoff since 2020 in Ladakh sector because of which ties between both countries have been on their lowest.
In June 2020, clashes were reported at Galwan Valley which resulted to death of 20 Indian soldiers and at least 4 Chinese troops. Since then thousands of troops have been deployed by both sides along the border.
Last year in December, skirmishes were reported in Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh.
With inputs from various news agencies.
