India rejects “mischievous attempts” by China to assign “fictitious names” to places that form part of Indian territory, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Sunday.
The reaction came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for several places in Arunachal Pradesh, PTI reported.
Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement that attempts by Beijing to introduce “false claims and manufacturing baseless narratives cannot alter the undeniable reality” that the places and territories, including Arunachal Pradesh, “were, are and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India”.
Jaiswal said that the “actions by the Chinese side detract from ongoing efforts to stabilise and normalise” bilateral ties. “China should refrain from actions which inject negativity into relations and undermine efforts to create better understanding,” the ministry said.
The bilateral relations have seen a thaw and picked up “good momentum” in the past year.
China has for long sought to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing lays territorial claims over a large portion of Arunachal Pradesh, claiming that it is “South Tibet”. China refers to Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan. India has rejected China’s claims.
The ministry’s comments also came after PTI reported on Sunday that China had created a new county named Cenling in the Xinjiang province near Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Afghanistan border.
The decision was aimed at apparently improving security along the Wakhan Corridor to curb infiltration of Uyghur separatists, the news agency reported.
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