Newsletters
@Evening: 👎 Beijing's Familiar Mischief And India's Response
China continues its cartographic aggression, but a confident India stays nonchalant.
Context. Beijing has unilaterally 'renamed' 11 places in India's Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as part of southern Tibet.
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released a list of the affected places and a map that shows parts of Arunachal as part of its territory.
The list has names in Mandarin, Tibetan, and Pinyin (English transliteration), and includes their exact latitude and longitude coordinates.
Curiously, the list also includes a town near the Arunachal capital of Itanagar.
Five mountain peaks, two populated areas, two land areas, and two rivers were 'renamed'.
Done before. This is Beijing's third list of "standardised geographical names," aiming to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh.
The same Chinese ministry had released a list of six places in 2017, and a new list of 15 places to 'rename' was issued in December 2021.
The reality is that India controls and administers the geographical area where all these places, including the recently 'renamed' list, are located, which is the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has previously rejected these "standardisation" attempts.
India's response. The MEA once again rejected China's latest attempt to lay claim over Arunachal.
"Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality," he added.
Wild claims. China claims most of Arunachal Pradesh, including the region of Tawang, which hosts the world's second-largest monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, the largest being the Potala Palace in Lhasa.
The country calls this area "Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet."
The renaming of disputed sites is seen as an effort by China to strengthen its territorial claims and preempt possible sovereignty disputes in international courts.
China has employed similar tactics in the South and East China Seas.
Putting it in perspective. Beijing's move comes at a time when India-China relations are at their worst in decades.
For its part, India has bolstered its military strength in Arunachal in recent years, with a particular focus on the Tawang sector, especially after the 2020 conflict in eastern Ladakh.
The Indian government has increased infrastructure development in forward areas of the region, and is carrying out significant infrastructure upgrades in eastern Arunachal.
By the way. China very recently decided to skip a G20 meeting on 26 March.
New Delhi's decision to hold the meeting in Arunachal was dubbed as a "diplomatic curveball" for Beijing.
