For the third time China has announced `renaming’ of eleven places in Arunachal Pradesh and one place renamed is located closer to Itanagar. The announcement of renaming ahead of the expected visit of the newly appointed Chinese Defence Minister General Li Shangfu, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers’ meetings later this month. Also, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, is expected to reach Goa for the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting early May.
In an attempt to lay claims on the Indian Territory, China has done this renaming exercise once in 2017 and then in 2021. Beijing calls this whole process as “standardized geographical names. It has been reported earlier that the Chinese Ministry of Civilian Affairs had put up a list of six places in 2017 and then in December it had released a list of 15 more places in Arunachal Pradesh. On April 2, 2023 Beijing released a map too with 11 places which are actually located in Arunachal Pradesh now being shown as being inside the southern Tibetan Region which is referred to as “Zangnan’’.
The 11 places mentioned in the Third list include
These include two populated areas, two land areas, two rivers and five mountain peaks and these places which Chinese are trying to claim as their own have always been administered and controlled by India. The list which was released mentions the name in Tibetan, Pinyin and Mandarin language according to reports also mentioning the exact Longitude and Latitude coordinates.
The Ministry of External Affairs has rejected such claims.
Official spokesperson of MEA Arindam Bagchi said in response to media queries:
“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright. ” Adding, “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality.”
View of an expert
“China has been doing this since 2017. This is the third time it has been done. In fact , two such events date post transgressions in Ladakh. Serious review of our statecraft is needed,” Maj Gen Ashok Kumar, VSM (Retd) tells Financial Express Online.
According to the former Army General, Kargil war veteran and defence analyst, “While we are focusing on Ladakh, China is focused on Arunachal Pradesh in equal measure. The Yangtse incident is a testimony of that.”
Is India’s response enough?
In his opinion India’s response has been largely mute in responding to overtures of China. China respects only strength. And, conflict with Russia in 1969 and with Vietnam in 1979 are testimony to this.
“Our silence is strange. China is displaying audacity to rename places of our one of the States. If we can’t be proactive, we need to respond in a similar manner by naming places in Aksai chin which we consider our own,” he states.
Also, not only renaming of the places, “China has been raising its voice over the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence minister Rajnath Singh and all others to Arunachal Pradesh. We need to take stock of what we have done to visitors in Aksai Chin?” Adding, “China has not restored the pre-April 2020 status quo. New Delhi’s muted response is also to blame.”
Background
Renaming of disputed areas is the Chinese attempt to bolster its territorial claims. This, according to sources, would also be a part of its attempt to use these in international court to support their claims in case there are any disagreements related to sovereignty. China has carried out similar attempts to rename places in the South China Sea and East China Sea.