New Delhi: India has strongly denounced China’s repeated attempts to rename locations within Arunachal Pradesh.
“We have noticed that China has persisted with its vain and preposterous attempts to name places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
The MEA said that such “creative naming” exercises will have no impact on the ground reality.
“Consistent with our principled position, we reject such attempts categorically. Creative naming will not alter the undeniable reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” it stated.
India’s reaction came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for some places in Arunachal Pradesh, which the neighbouring country claims as the southern part of Tibet.
New Delhi has repeatedly dismissed these actions as baseless and politically motivated.
China has long claimed that the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh is part of its own territory.
This includes periodically releasing lists of Chinese names for towns, villages, and geographical features in the state, issuing stapled visas—instead of stamped visas—to residents of Arunachal Pradesh, and opposing infrastructure and development projects by India in the region.
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On Monday, China’s senior foreign ministry official in-charge of Asian affairs Liu Jinsong met Indian Ambassador to China Pradeep Kumar Rawat amid India-Pakistan military conflict and exchanged views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern.
