India’s increased tension with Pakistan was still decreasing that another neighbor China has done its devious move. China has once again tried to change the names of those places by releasing standard geographical names of 27 places in India’s integral organ Arunachal Pradesh. China has released 15 mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, five residential areas, four hill passes, two rivers and standard names of one lake. By doing such acts, China has again tried to present its false claim on the areas of Arunachal Pradesh, which India has rejected from the end like every time.
India’s Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying that such creative naming will not have any effect on the ground reality.
The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement, ‘We are seeing that China continues its waste and absurd efforts to naming places in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. According to our theoretical attitude, we clearly reject such efforts. Creative nomenclature will not change the undisputed reality that Arunachal Pradesh was an integral and inseparable part of India, and will always be. ‘
China has done this nefarious act before
This is not the first time that China has tried to change the names of the areas of Indian state Arunachal Pradesh, but it has been doing this work since 2017. China first released standard names of six places in Arunachal in 2017. China Arunachal Pradesh, called Janganan in China, has been presenting its false and baseless claim since 1950 and claims that Arunachal is part of South Tibet.
But before 2017, China had never tried to change the name of the places of Arunachal Pradesh. In early April the same year, the Tibetan religious leader Dalai Lama, who was living in India, visited Tawang Buddhist Math in Arunachal Pradesh. A few days later, China raging from Lama’s Tawang tour had acted to change the names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh.
After 2017, China again did such an act in December 2021 and during that time, not six but 21 places were tried to change the names. China released the standard names of 11 districts of Arunachal, from Tawang to Anjaw, in Chinese, Tibetan and Roman. India then termed this move of China as unacceptable and said that keeping new names does not change the ground truth. Arunachal Pradesh is a part of India and will always be.
In March 2024, China also released names in lieu of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh. India was very angry at this action of China and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said that the name changing will not have any effect and Arunachal Pradesh will be a part of India as usual.
The Foreign Minister had said, ‘If today I change the name of your house, will it become mine? Arunachal Pradesh is there and will always be the state of India. Nothing happens by changing the name.
At the same time, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh had said that India and China’s relations are declining due to these antics of China. He had said, ‘We want to maintain good relationships with our neighbors. But if someone tries to hurt our self -respect, then India has the ability to give a befitting reply.
India-China border dispute and Arunachal Pradesh
There is a 3,500 km long border line between India and China called the Line of Actual Control or LAC. It is divided into three sectors. China’s border comes from Jammu and Kashmir in India which is called the Western Sector. The length of the western sector is 1597 km. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand get the border of China in the middle sector. Its length is 545 km. Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh come in the eastern sector. The total length of the Indo-China border here is 1346 km.
Aksai comes to China in the western sector, which was captured by China during the 1962 Indo-China War. India has described this occupation of China as illegal and it claims its territory.
China fully captured Tibet in 1950 and since then it presents its claim on Arunachal Pradesh. Tawang Math is considered to be a very important religious place for the Buddhists of Tibet and China always wants this area of ​​Arunachal to remain in its possession.
China does not recognize McMahon’s line either
The McMahon line is the line between the Tibetan region of India and China in which it was established in 1914 under the Shimla Agreement. The British rule was then in India and the agreement was signed by the then administrator of India Henry McMahon and the then Tibetan Sarkar representative.
While India became independent in 1947, China got independence in 1949. On gaining independence, China established its control over Tibet in 1950, saying that it is liberating Tibet. As soon as Tibet was taken under control, his eyes fell on Arunachal Pradesh and he started calling it his part.
China does not even accept the McMahon line and says that Tibet is in the authority of China, so it will not accept the signed agreement of any Tibetan representative.
China has also tried to encroach in many areas of Arunachal Pradesh. In 1986, his army also built paved buildings near Sumdorong Chu of Tawang. India protested and deployed its soldiers. The then Foreign Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari visited China after which the matter was resolved.
However, China has not stopped its aggression in Arunachal and has been presenting its false claims about the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh till now.