- Sunday, March 02, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Amid a war of words between India and China over Beijing’s alleged renaming spots in the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a two-day visit by India’s home minister Amit Shah to the state starting Monday (10) has sparked a fresh row with China firmly opposing it.
A spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry said in a news briefing that the top minister’s visit in Arunachal violates Beijing’s territorial sovereignty.
The latest incident happened a week within China allegedly renaming some places in Arunachal which it claims to be part of its territory.
“Zangnan is China’s territory,” spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in response to a question on the visit by Shah. Beijing calls Arunachal by the name of “Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet”.
The official said the Indian minister’s visit to Arunachal is “not conducive to the peace and tranquility of the border situation”.
Shah, who is the second-most powerful leader in India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party after prime minister Narendra Modi, will launch the ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ in Kibithoo, a village in Arunachal located along the China border.
India has always maintained that Arunachal is its inalienable part and China’s giving names will not change the ground reality.
“This is not the first time that China is making such attempts, and we have criticised such attempts. Arunachal Pradesh is an inalienable part of India. China giving its own inventive names will not change the ground reality. I would like to re-emphasise that,” spokesperson of India’s external affairs minister Arindam Bagchi said last week.
Last month, India’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the situation along the Line of Actual Control between India and China in eastern Ladakh remained “very fragile” and is “quite dangerous” in military assessment because of close deployments of troops of both sides in some pockets though “substantial” progress has been made in the disengagement process in many areas.
The United States has also strongly opposed China’s attempts to advance a claim over Arunachal by renaming localities.
“This is another attempt by the Chinese claim on US, Indian territory. So the United States, as you know, has recognized 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.
(With PTI inputs)
