New Delhi:
India has again spent a strong refutation on China's attempts to rename certain places in Arunachal Pradesh, to which Beijing calls “Zangnan” or the southern part of Tibet. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MEA), who responded to a new round of Chinese -required initiatives, rejected the exercise as useless and repeated India's position on the status of the state.
“We have noticed that China maintained his vain and ridiculous attempts to name places in the Indian state Arunachal Pradesh,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on Wednesday. “In accordance with our principle position, we categorically refuse such attempts. Creative naming will not change the unmistakable reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, an integral and inalienable part of India,” said the Ministry of External Affairs in a statement.
China, which Arunachal Pradesh claims as part of its territory, has often released maps with different places in the northeastern state. In 2024, China released a list with 30 new names of different places in Arunachal Pradesh, which categorically rejected India.
The border conflict between India and China over Arunachal Pradesh has been a long -term source of friction. The region shares a border with the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet. Beijing claims the State as part of the historic Tibet, while New Delhi has given it as an integral part of India since independence in 1947 and the subsequent consolidation of the northeast.
The territorial dispute about Arunachal Pradesh has been accompanied by concern about the use of water resources in the region in recent years. At the center of these concerns, China's decision is to construct what is expected to be the world's largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the Medog County in Tibet in Tibet's Medog province, and flows to India, and later the Brahmaputra.
Tapir Gao, MP and State BJP Unit Chief, had described the Chinese project last month as a “water bomb”. “China has already decided to build a dam that will have the capacity to produce 60,000 MW of electricity. This will not be a dam, but a water bomb used against India and other lower end countries,” said Mr. Gao.
The BJP Member of Parliament reminded the floods of June 2000, of which he claimed that they were caused by a similar release of water upstream, resulting in the destruction of more than ten bridges in Arunachal Pradesh. “If China decides to release water from Dam Square in the future, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bangladesh and other countries in Southeast -Asia will be destroyed,” he warned.
He also supported the construction of a counter-balancing dam in Arunachal Pradesh to manage power-reducing disaster risks that can result from sudden water discharges from the Chinese side.
