NEW DELHI: India on Thursday reemphasised that changing names of places in Arunachal Pradesh will not change the fact that the state is and will always be an integral part of India.
Arindam Bagchi, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said: “Arunachal has always been, and will always be an integral part of India. Assigning invented names to places in Arunachal does not alter this fact.”
He was responding to a query on reports that China has renamed some places in Arunachal in its own language.
“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has attempted renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh. China had also sought to assign such names in April 2017.” Bagchi added.
On Wednesday, the Chinese government renamed 15 places of Arunachal in its map. China calls Arunachal ‘South Tibet’ and lays its claim over this 90,000 sq km area.
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs issued a statement stating they have ‘standardised’ names for 15 places in Arunachal, to be used on Chinese maps. They announced Chinese characters, Tibetan and Roman alphabet names for places in Zangnan, the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh, state-run Global Times reported on Thursday.
Renaming places comes just two days ahead of implementing the new border law which was passed on October 23 by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body.
The new law was passed citing “protection and exploitation of the country’s land border areas”. The committee had stated that the new law will come into effect from January 1.
The new law is not meant specifically for the border with India. China shares its 22,457 km land boundary with 14 countries including India.
As per law, the People’s Republic of China shall set up boundary markers on all its land borders to clearly mark the border. The type of marker to be used should be decided in agreement with the relevant neighbouring nation.