NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday rejected attempts by China to rename 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh. “We have seen such report. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright,” Arindam Bagchi, the external affairs ministry spokesperson, said in a Twitter post on Tuesday.
“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,” Bagchi said.
India’s reaction comes after China’s ministry of civil affairs came up with the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which it referred to as “Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet.”
The move to rename 11 places comes just a week after India held a G20 meeting in Arunachal that China chose to skip.
The names were released on Sunday by China’s ministry of civil affairs in Chinese, Tibetan and Pinyin. This is in accordance with regulations on geographical names issued by the State Council, China’s cabinet, state mouthpiece Global Times reported Monday.
The list specifies precise coordinates, including two land areas, two residential areas, five mountain peaks and two rivers. Categories of places, names and their subordinate administrative districts have also been mentioned.
“This is the third batch of standardised geographical names in Zangnan issued by the ministry. The first batch of six places was released in 2017 and the second of 15 places in 2021,” Global Times added.
(With inputs from agencies)