'Creative naming won't alter…reality': India on China renaming Arunachal places
What's the story
India has firmly rejected China's claims over Arunachal Pradesh and strongly protested its attempts to rename places in the state.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said such attempts at "creative naming" won't change the fact that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India.
"Consistent with our principled position, we reject such attempts categorically. Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India," MEA said in an official statement.
Ongoing dispute
China continues to issue maps renaming Arunachal Pradesh locations
China has repeatedly released maps renaming several locations in Arunachal Pradesh.
In 2024, it published a fresh list with 30 more names for places in the region—a move that India had categorically rejected.
Beijing claims Arunachal as part of the southern region of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), called "zagnan."
Beijing last standardized the names of 11 locations in Arunachal using Chinese characters, Tibetan and pinyin, the standard romanization of Mandarin characters on Chinese maps, in April 2023.
Twitter Post
Statement by MEA
MEA says, "We have noticed that China has persisted with its vain and preposterous attempts to name places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Consistent with our principled position, we reject such attempts categorically. Creative naming will not alter the undeniable… pic.twitter.com/Jb8qIjidTN
— ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2025
27 places
China renames 27 places
China this week again reasserted its territorial claims by releasing "standard" names for dozens of places in the region.
The renaming of 27 sites encompassed a wide range of geographical features, including 15 mountains, five residential districts, four mountain passes, two rivers, and one lake.
Each place was given a name in Chinese characters, Tibetan, and pinyin (the romanized spelling of Mandarin Chinese) and accompanied by detailed latitude and longitude coordinates as well as a high-resolution map.
Statement
Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs release statement
"In accordance with the relevant provisions of the State Council...we in conjunction with the relevant departments have standardized some of the geographical names in Zangnan," China said.
In recent years, the territorial conflict over Arunachal has been accompanied by worries about the region's water resource utilization.
China plans to build the world's largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet's Medog County, just before the river bends and flows into India as Siang and then becomes the Brahmaputra.