The Ministry of External Affairs' (MEA) official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, on Tuesday, April 2 clarified India's stance on reports that China renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh. MEA called the move is senseless attempt and said that India rejects such claims.
"China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts. Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India,” He said.
According to media reports, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs published a list of 30 more renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh and along the border with India earlier. The Ministry released a name referred to as Zangnan by China, and it claims to be part of the Tibetan autonomous region.
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According to the South China Morning Post report, the Chinese ministry said, "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 renaming comprised 11 residential districts, 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass, and a parcel of land, all denoted in Chinese characters, Tibetan script, and pinyin, the Romanised form of Mandarin Chinese.