Zangnan part of Chinese territory, says Beijing on renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Zangnan is a part of their country and it is well within China’s sovereign rights to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh. The comments came a day after India strongly rejected China’s renaming of 11 places in the northeastern state. 

China refers to the set of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh it recently renamed as Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by the news agency AFP, “Zangnan is part of China’s territory. In accordance with relevant stipulations of the administration of geographical names of the State Council, competent authorities of the Chinese government have standardised the names of some parts of Zangnan. This is within China’s sovereign rights.”

Earlier this week, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs released the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese, Tibetan, and Pinyin characters in keeping with the Chinese cabinet’s regulations on geographical names. The places named included 5 mountain peaks, 2 land areas, 2 rivers, and 2 residential areas. 

Soon after this, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and an inalienable part of India. Bagchi said, “We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright. 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.”

This is not the first time China issued a batch of standardised geographical names for Arunachal Pradesh. China issued the first batch of standardised names of 6 places in the state in 2017 and the second batch comprising 15 places in 2021.

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