India Rejects China’s Attempt to Rename Arunachal Pradesh

India has firmly rejected China’s attempt to rename approximately 30 locations in the northeastern Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh, labeling the move as “senseless” and emphasizing that the border province remains an “integral” part of India. Beijing asserts that Arunachal Pradesh, which it refers to as Zangnan, falls under South Tibet, a claim consistently refuted by New Delhi. This tension escalated a year earlier when China bestowed Chinese names upon 11 sites within the state.

Incidents of minor altercations between troops of the nuclear-armed nations along their disputed frontier in Arunachal Pradesh occurred in December 2022, with tensions subsiding following extensive military and diplomatic discussions. Nevertheless, the state continues to be a focal point for discord between India and China, whose relations have deteriorated since a violent clash between their forces in the western Himalayas in 2020.

In response to China’s recent statement standardizing the names of locations in what it terms South Tibet, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, reaffirmed on Tuesday that assigning fabricated names does not alter the reality of Arunachal Pradesh’s status as an integral and inseparable part of India. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, addressing reporters the day prior, dismissed the renaming efforts, questioning the significance of altering names to change territorial ownership. He rhetorically asked, “If I change the name of your house, does it become my house?”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *