India has initiated a tit-for-tat naming strategy to counter China's renaming of locations in Arunachal Pradesh. New Delhi intends to rename around 30 places in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, it has been learnt from a report in the Diplomat.
The newly-elected NDA government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the renaming of 30 locations in Tibet, signaling a strong response to China's nomenclature aggression, states the report. These names, grounded in historical research and connections to the Tibet region, will be published by the Indian Army and updated on their maps along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The list includes 11 residential areas, 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass, and a piece of land, with names presented in Chinese characters, Tibetan, and pinyin. China has previously released lists of standardised names for places in Arunachal Pradesh since 2017, with the latest list containing nearly as many new names as the previous three lists combined.
According to former Intelligence Bureau officer Benu Ghosh, cited in the Diplomat, "PM Modi sought to win these polls on the strength of his strongman image. It is natural he will authorise the renaming of Tibetan places to live up to that image". Notably, Ghosh has been following China and its border issues with India for decades now.
“As and when the renaming campaign happens, it will be tantamount to India reopening the Tibetan question,” Ghosh has been further quoted by the Diplomat. "India has accepted Tibet as part of China since it was forcibly occupied by Beijing, but now [the] Modi government seems prepared to change course to deflate the Chinese cartographical and nomenclature aggression", according to the former IB officer as cited in the report.
Relations between India and China have been strained, with the exception of trade, since the eastern Ladakh border standoff began on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong Tso area. To date, the two sides have held 21 rounds of military talks to resolve the standoff. Under PM Modi's third term, India aims to assert its territorial claims by assigning its own names to locations in occupied Tibet.
Despite China’s repeated claims, India has consistently affirmed that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of the country. The Ministry of External Affairs has maintained that assigning "invented" names does not change this reality. This strong response from India comes as China's expansionist policies in regions like the South China Sea have garnered global disapproval.
Taking charge as Minister of External Affairs for the second time, S Jaishankar, on June 11, reaffirmed India’s strong stance on issues concerning China and Pakistan. He emphasised that both border issues and cross-border terrorism will be addressed firmly by India.
"As far as Pakistan and China are concerned, the relations with those countries are different, and the problems there are also different. Our focus with regard to China will be on finding a solution for the border issues and with Pakistan, we would want to find a solution to the issue of years-old cross-border terrorism".
India has consistently rejected China's attempts to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh, affirming that the state is an integral part of the country and that assigning "invented" names does not change this reality.