After China announced ‘standardised’ names for 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh, India asserted that assigning “invented names” does not alter the facts on the ground that Arunachal Pradesh is and has always been an integral part of India.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi referred to China’s move of renaming the places in Arunachal Pradesh in its own language and noted “Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be an integral part of India. Assigning invented names to places in Arunachal Pradesh does not alter this fact.”
India’s strong reaction came after the Global Times reported that China’s ministry of civil affairs had announced standardised names in Chinese characters, Tibetan and Roman alphabet for 15 places in ‘Zangnan’ (or South Tibet), Beijing’s term for Arunachal Pradesh. Eight of the names are for inhabited areas, four are for mountains, two for rivers and a mountain pass.
Lian Xiangmin, an expert with the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday that it is part of a national effort to standardise the management of place names.
Bagchi added that this was not the first time China attempted to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh. China had for the first time assigned Chinese names in Arunachal Pradesh in April 2017, just after the Dalai Lama’s visit to the state.
