'Invented Names Won't Alter Reality': India Reacts as China Renames 11 Places in Arunachal Pradesh

India on Tuesday “outright rejected” China’s move to rename 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh that it claims as South Tibet. The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, in a release, had said that they are “standardising some geographical names in southern Tibet”.

“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright. 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,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs, said.

The state-run tabloid, Global Times, had quoted Chinese government notification as stating, “The official names of the 11 places were released by the ministry on Sunday, which also gave precise coordinates, including two land areas, two residential areas, five mountain peaks and two rivers. It also listed the category of places’ names and their subordinate administrative districts.”

China also released a map that showed parts of Arunachal Pradesh inside the southern Tibetan region, that it refers to as Zangnan. This even includes a town close to the state capital of Itanagar.

The names were released on Sunday by China’s ministry of civil affairs in Chinese, Tibetan and Pinyin. “Pinyin which will help people to remember and identify these place names more conveniently and accurately,” Global Times, which is part of the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily group of publications, stated.

Some opposition leaders tried to latch on China’s ‘renaming attempt, and said, “Government of India now wants us to be a mute spectator to China constantly bullying India on LAC.”

In the past too, India has rejected similar renaming and standardisation attempts. “Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be an integral part of India. Assigning invented names to places in Arunachal Pradesh does not alter this fact,” spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said in 2021.

In 2017 and 2021, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had stated that China’s territorial claims in the so-called “Zangnan region” had a “historical and administrative basis”.

The Global Times stated this is the third batch of “standardized geographical names in Zangnan” issued by the civil affairs ministry. The first batch of the standardized names of six places in Zangnan was released in 2017, and the second batch of 15 places was issued in 2021.

The first set of names was announced by China days after the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh. China was sharply critical of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s visit.

The Dalai Lama fled from Tibet through Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and sought refuge in India in 1959 after China took military control of the Himalayan region in 1950.

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