China has renamed 11 places in India's remote Arunachal Pradesh state, along the countries' disputed border that Beijing claims as part of Tibet.
The Chinese government on Sunday released the list of renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh — which it referred to as “Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet”, China’s state-run newspaper Global Times said.
China's Civil Affairs Ministry said it had “standardised some geographical names in Southern Tibet”.
“The third batch of supplementary place names for public use in Southern Tibet is now officially announced,” it said.
The nuclear-armed nations share about 4,000km border that traverses the Himalayas from Ladakh in the north to eastern Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, known as the line of actual control, or LAC.
“China’s Civil Affairs Ministry has standardised the names of the 11 places in Zangnan (southern part of China's Xizang region) in Chinese characters and Tibetan, an act based on sovereignty and history,” the Global Times said.
The renaming of places includes two residential areas, five mountain peaks, two rivers and two other areas. It also listed the category of places' names and their subordinate administrative districts, the report said.
It said that it is the third batch of standardised geographical names in “Zangnan” issued by the ministry.
China renamed six places in Arunachal Pradesh in 2017 and released a list of 15 places in 2021.
This latest act comes ahead of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation Defence Ministers’ meeting in New Delhi this month. China’s newly appointed Defence Minister Gen Li Shangfu is expected to attend.
The SCO is an intergovernmental organisation founded in Shanghai in 2001, focusing mainly on regional security issues. Its members are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The Indian government has rejected Beijing's claims and said that Arunachal Pradesh is an “integral part” of India.
“We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright,” India's Ministry of External Affairs said.
“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.”
Diplomatic relations between the two countries have remained frosty since deadly clashes in Himalayan Ladakh along the LAC in June 2020.
Twenty soldiers from India and four from China were killed when troops fought using fists, clubs, stones and other improvised weapons.
This triggered the mobilisation of tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides to the high-altitude disputed border. The countries fought a war over this area in 1962.
Since the 2020 clashes, officials from both sides have held several rounds of discussions to restore peace, but border issues remain.
Troops again fought with improvised weapons in December last year, after Chinese soldiers entered the Yangtse region in Tawang Sector in Arunachal Pradesh.
India described this as an attempt to “change the status quo” at the countries' disputed border.
