(Adnkronos) – China yesterday published a new list of place names assigned to 27 locations in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, in northeastern India, a territory that Beijing considers an integral part of the autonomous region of Tibet. The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced that it had “standardized some of these place names in the Zangnan area”, the name by which Beijing refers to Arunachal Pradesh, using names in Chinese, Tibetan and the Latin pinyin transcription.
According to the Chinese government, the measure is “in accordance with the provisions of the State Council on the management of geographical names”. The new names concern 15 mountains, five localities, four passes, two rivers and a lake. The publication is accompanied by geographical coordinates and an explanatory map, in a context in which China claims about 60,000 square kilometers of territory in southern Tibet, now part of India. The move risks reigniting tensions between the two Asian giants, despite numerous attempts at dialogue undertaken in recent years.
India’s reaction was immediate, firmly rejecting the Chinese initiative: “We have noted that China persists with its vain and absurd attempts to rename places. From our position, we categorically reject such attempts – declared the spokesman of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal – This will not alter the reality of Arunachal Pradesh, which will continue to be an inalienable part of India”. The territorial dispute between the two countries had already led to an armed clash in 1962 and, more recently, to a violent conflict in June 2020 in the Ladakh area, which cost the lives of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
