- Sunday, March 02, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
China on Tuesday (4) spoke on northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh once again by claiming its “sovereignty” over the region. Its latest remarks came after India rejected China’s attempt to rename places in Arunachal outright.
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a press conference, “Zangnan (Arunachal Pradesh) is part of China’s territory. In accordance with relevant stipulations of the administration of geographical names of the State Council, competent authorities of the Chinese government have standardised the names of some parts of Zangnan. This is within China’s sovereign rights.”
Earlier in the day, Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of India’s ministry of external affairs said Arunachal will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.
He said it after China’s ministry of civil affairs came up with names of 11 places in Arunachal, which it referred to as “Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet”.
In response to media queries regarding China’s renaming act, Bagchi in a statement said, “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.”
Meanwhile, the US said it “strongly opposes” China’s attempts to advance a claim over Arunachal Pradesh by renaming localities, the White House said on Tuesday.
“This is another attempt by the Chinese claim on us, Indian territory. So the United States, as you know, has recognised that territory for a long time and we strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to advance a territory claim by renaming localities. And so, again, this is something that we have long stood by a few things,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
China released names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese characters, Tibetan and pinyin according to the rules on geographical names issued by the State Council, China’s cabinet, the Global Times reported.
The ministry announced the names of 11 places on Sunday (2) and also gave precise coordinates, including two residential areas, five mountain peaks, two rivers and two other areas. China’s civil affairs ministry also listed the category of places’ names and their subordinate administrative districts, as per the news report.
The report also said that it was the third batch of geographical names announced by the ministry in Arunachal Pradesh. The first batch of the standardised names of six places was issued in 2017 and the second batch of 15 in 2021.
(With ANI inputs)
