New Delhi, Dec 30 (PTI) India on Thursday rejected China renaming some places in Arunachal Pradesh and asserted that the state has “always been” and will “always be” an integral part of India as assigning “invented” names does not alter this fact.
India’s assertion came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for 15 more places in Arunachal Pradesh which the neighbouring country claims as South Tibet.
“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has attempted such a renaming of places in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. China had also sought to assign such names in April 2017,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.
“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,” he said.
Bagchi was responding to a media query on reports that China has renamed some places in Arunachal Pradesh in its own language.
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on Wednesday that it had standardised in Chinese characters, Tibetan and Roman alphabet the names of 15 places in Zangnan, the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh, according to state-run Global Times.
This is in accordance with regulations on geographical names issued by the State Council, China’s cabinet, it said in a report.
Among the official names of the 15 places, which were given exact longitude and latitude, eight are residential places, four are mountains, two are rivers and one is a mountain pass, the report said.
This is the second batch of standardised names of places in Arunachal Pradesh given by China.
The first batch of the standardised names of six places was released in 2017. PTI MPB ZMN
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