China has recently declared that it will be renaming 11 areas in Arunachal Pradesh, a region that borders Tibet, including a location in close proximity to Itanagar.
- The Chinese government has made a recent attempt to claim areas inside Indian territory, specifically in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
- On Sunday, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released a list of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh that it intends to “standardise” the names of.
- The list includes a map that shows parts of Arunachal Pradesh inside the southern Tibetan region, referred to as Zangnan by China.
- This is the third time China has released such a list, attempting to rename places by giving them “standardised geographical names”.
- In 2017, a similar list of six places was released, and in December 2021, a list of 15 places was released for renaming.
- The Chinese government’s actions in claiming territory within India’s borders have been a point of tension between the two countries.
- China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, together with relevant departments, has standardized some geographical names in southern Tibet.
- The third batch of supplementary place names for public use in southern Tibet (11 in total) has been officially announced.
- The 11 places named include five mountain peaks, two more populated areas, two land areas, and two rivers.
- The claimed geographical area has always been controlled and administered by India.
- The list released by China includes names in Mandarin, Tibetan, and Pinyin (English transliteration) of the 11 places, along with their exact Latitude and Longitude coordinates.
- A map included in the announcement shows much of Arunachal Pradesh marked as Zangnan, in the south of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, that China calls Xizang.
- Security establishment sources claim that renaming disputed locations by China is an attempt to bolster their territorial claims and create evidence to support their claims in case of any sovereignty disagreements in an international court.
- Another source stated that the repeated renaming would have no bearing on the ground situation.
- China has renamed disputed locations not only in Arunachal Pradesh but also in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
- The first list of renamed locations was published in the same year as the confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops in Doklam.
- The second and latest list of renamed locations come after the LAC stand-off between the Indian Army and PLA forces began in April 2020.
- Despite several rounds of official and military commander-level talks that led to disengagement in certain sectors after the Galwan killings in 2020, there are reports of Chinese attempts at transgressing the boundaries.
- In December 2022, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced that Chinese PLA soldiers and Indian Army soldiers had a physical scuffle.
- The scuffle happened when PLA soldiers attempted to capture a post in Yangtse of the Tawang Sector.
- However, Indian Army soldiers successfully pushed back PLA soldiers to their side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
- The announcement was made in the Indian Parliament.
- China’s newly appointed Defence Minister General Li Shangfu is expected to visit India this month to attend the SCO Defence Ministers’ meetings.
- Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will attend the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May.
- India has significantly upgraded firepower along the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh since the 2020 stand-off in eastern Ladakh.
- India has also ramped up infrastructure in forward areas in the Tawang sector.
- Massive infrastructure upgrade is currently underway in eastern Arunachal Pradesh.