New Delhi:
India on Thursday strongly rejected China’s renaming of certain places in Arunachal Pradesh, claiming that the state “has always been” and “always will be” an integral part of India and that assigning “made-up” names does not change this fact.
India’s response came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for another 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which the neighboring country claims as Southern Tibet.
“We have seen such names. This is not the first time China has tried to rename places in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in this way. China had also tried to assign such names in April 2017,” said Arindam Bagchi, spokesman for the ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Arunachal Pradesh has always been an integral part of India and always will be an integral part of India. Assigning invented names to places in Arunachal Pradesh does not change this fact,” he said.
Mr Bagchi responded to a media question about reports that China has renamed some places in Arunachal Pradesh in its own language.
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on Wednesday that it has standardized the names of 15 places in Zangnan, the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh, into Chinese characters, the Tibetan and Roman alphabets, according to the state-run Global Times.
This is in line with the regulations on geographical names issued by the State Council, the Chinese cabinet, it said in a report.
Among the official names of the 15 places, which have been given exact latitude and longitude, are eight residential areas, four mountains, two rivers and one is a mountain pass, the report said.
This is the second set of standardized names of places in Arunachal Pradesh given by China.
The first batch of the six-place standardized names was released in 2017.
China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet.
The eight residential areas in the second batch are Sengkezong and Daglungzong in Cona County in Shannan Prefecture, Mani’gang, Duding and Migpain in Medog County in Nyingchi, Goling, Damba in Zayu County in Nyingchi and Mejag in Lhunze County in Shannan Prefecture, according to the Global Times report.
The four mountains are Wamo Ri, Dêu Ri, Lhünzhub Ri and Kunmingxingzê Feng, it said.
The two rivers are Xenyogmo He and Dulain He, and the mountain pass is called Se La, in Cona County.
The report quoted Lian Xiangmin, a self-proclaimed expert at the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, as saying the announcement is part of the national survey of place names that has been going on for hundreds of years.
China’s renaming of sites in Arunachal Pradesh came in the midst of the lingering stalemate on the eastern Ladakh border that began in May last year.
Following the standoff, India strengthened its overall military readiness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the sector of Arunachal Pradesh.
Commander of the Eastern Army, Lieutenant General Manoj Pande, said in October that China has stepped up the intensity of its military exercises and deployment of troops in its lowlands against the LAC in the sector of Arunachal Pradesh.
He said India has prepared contingency plans accordingly to deal with any eventualities.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)