The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday rebuffed China’s attempt to rename several places in Arunachal Pradesh, reiterating that the state “will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”
“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,” MEA official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said in response to media queries.
China recently released a list of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to assert its claim over India’s northeastern state.
According to a recent report in the state-run Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs has released a fourth list of standardized geographical names in Zangnan, the term that China uses for referring to Arunachal Pradesh.
In 2017, the ministry released the first list of standardized names for six locations in Zangnan. This was followed by the release of a second list comprising names for 15 places in 2021, and a third list containing names for 11 places in 2023.
India has repeatedly rejected attempts by China to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh. External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar said on Monday that altering names will not have any effect on the status of the territory, as the northeastern state will always remain an integral part of India.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju also denounced China’s “baseless claims.”
“I strongly condemn China’s illegally ‘standardised’ geographical names given to 30 places inside Arunachal Pradesh. China has been making all baseless claims but that’s not going to change the ground reality and the ‘historical facts’,” Rijiju said.
On March 28, reiterating that Arunachal Pradesh is an “integral and inalienable part of India,” the Ministry of External Affairs said that China’s repetition of its “baseless claims” will not change India’s position.