Such attempts will not alter the reality, says MEA

AMN / WEB DESK

The External Affairs Ministry has refuted the Chinese move to renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh. In a statement, official spokesperson of External Affairs Ministry Arindam Bagchi today said, this is not the first time China has made such an attempt. He said, India rejects this outright.

Mr. Bagchi asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of the country and attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality.

The response came in the wake of media reports stating that China has renamed 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh.

In its latest attempt to lay claim to areas inside the Indian territory, the Chinese government on Sunday announced it would “standardise” the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh. Releasing a list of the 11 places along with a map that shows parts of Arunachal Pradesh instead as inside the southern Tibetan region, that China refers to as Zangnan, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs even included a town close to the Arunachal Pradesh capital of Itanagar.

This is Beijing’s third such list on Arunachal Pradesh, attempting to “rename” places by giving them what it calls “standardised geographical names”. In 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Civilian Affairs put out a similar list of six places, and in December 2021, released a list of 15 places that it sought to rename.