Beijing: The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs on Saturday renamed 30 more places in Arunachal Pradesh to lay claim to what it calls Zangnan, or part of the Tibetan autonomous region, South China Morning Post has reported.
On Saturday, the Ministry published the country’s latest set of “standardised” names which included 11 residential areas, 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass and a piece of land. The names of the places it has renamed is not yet known. According to the SCMP report, each of these names was presented in Chinese characters, Tibetan script, and pinyin, which represents the Roman alphabet version of Mandarin Chinese.
“In accordance with the relevant provisions of the State Council [China’s cabinet] on the management of geographical names, we in conjunction with the relevant departments have standardised some of the geographical names in Zangnan of China,” the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs as quoted by the South China Morning Post.
Last year in April, China had released third set of 11 places including two land areas, two residential areas, five mountain peaks and two rivers and listed the category of places’ names and their subordinate administrative districts which it had renamed, state-run Global Times had reported. The first batch of the standardised names of six places in Arunachal was released in 2017, and the second batch of 15 places was issued in 2021.
Earlier on 28 March, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said that Beijing may “repeat its baseless claims” as many times as it wants but that is not going to change New Delhi’s position that Arunachal Pradesh “was, is and will always remain” an integral and inalienable part of the country. His comments came days after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian reiterated China’s claim.
Recently, The Chinese military had also criticised the US for its assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is part of India, stating that India and China have mature mechanisms, communication channels, ability, and willingness to handle the border issue through dialogue and consultations properly.
He was reacting to US State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel’s statement on March 9 stating that “the United States recognizes Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and we strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims by incursions or encroachments, military or civilian, across the Line of Actual Control.”
PTI