India slams ‘sensless’ attempts by China on Arunachal Pradesh

New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday firmly rejected China’s attempt to rename several places in Arunachal Pradesh saying assigning invented names will “not alter the reality that the state will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.

“China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts. Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India,” External Affairs ministry official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said in an official statement. The MEA spokesperson was responding to media queries on renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh by China.

China has recently released a list of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to assert its claim over India’s northeastern state. India has been rejecting such renaming of places by China.

According to a March 30 report in its state run Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released a fourth list of standardized geographical names in Zangnan, the name that China uses for Arunachal Pradesh. According to the official website of the ministry, 30 additional publicly used place names in the Zangnan region has been officially revealed, the Global times report said.

The Chinese Civil Affairs Ministry released the first list of the so -called standardised names of six places in Zangnan in 2017, while the second list of 15 places was issued in 2021 followed by another list with names for 11 places in 2023.

Set to take effect from May 1, 2024, the implementation measures stipulate in Article 13 that “place names in foreign languages that may harm China’s territorial claims and sovereignty rights shall not be directly quoted or translated without authorization,” the Global Times report said.

India has repeatedly rebuffed such attempts by China to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh.

On Monday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that changing names won’t have any effect and the northeastern state was, is and will always be India’s part. (IANS)

Also Read: Arunachal Pradesh: China Renames 30 Places in 4th List (sentinelassam.com)

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