India on Tuesday hit back at China over on renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh. China on Monday renamed third set of names in Chinese, Tibetan and pinyin characters for Arunachal Pradesh, as part of its efforts to reemphasise its claim over the Indian state.
China's Ministry of Civil Affairs called the 11 places "Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet" following regulations on geographical names issued by the State Council, China's cabinet said.
Rejecting China's move 'outrightly', MEA said, "This is not first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright. Arunachal Pradesh an integral, inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality."
This is the third batch of standardised geographical names for Arunachal Pradesh issued by China’s civil affairs ministry. 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.
India has previously dismissed the Chinese move of renaming some places in Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that the state has "always been" and will "always be" an integral part of India and that assigning "invented" names does not alter this fact.
