China has named 30 places on the Himalayan border. India rejects “senseless” gesture | Asia

India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted this Tuesday to the weekend’s announcement by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China regarding the attribution of Chinese names to 30 geographical points located in the disputed Himalayan border region. between the two countries for more than 60 years, labeling the gesture “unwise” and criticizing Beijing.

“China has persisted in its foolish attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts”, declared the ministry in a statement, cited by the newspaper Hindustani Times. “The attribution of invented names does not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, was and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”

The day before, India’s Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, had already told journalists that China “gained nothing by changing the names” of the places in question.

“If I change the name of your house, will it become mine?” he asked, quoted by Reuters. “Arunachal Pradesh was an Indian State, is an Indian State and will continue to be so in the future.”

On Sunday, Chinese state media reported that the Ministry of Civil Affairs had added 30 new names the day before to the map of the region it calls Zangnan and which it says is part of the southern zone of the Tibet autonomous region.

O South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, later explained that names were given to 11 residential areas, 12 mountains, four rivers, a lake, a gorge and land. Names that already appear on the updated map in site of the ministry.

“In accordance with the relevant provisions of the State Council [Governo] on the management of geographical names, we, together with the relevant departments, have standardized some geographical names in Zangnan of China”, announced the Ministry of Civil Affairs, cited by the Post.

Historical dispute

The dispute between the two Asian giants in the Himalayan region began in 1959, following the British decolonization of Indian territory. China and India claim several territories on a border of almost four thousand kilometers that runs through five Indian states; and went to war for them in 1962.

The ceasefire agreements that put an end to the Sino-Indian war resulted in the demarcation of a line of separation known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), around which, in the following decades, the two Armies built roads, airstrips and barracks, militarizing the region.

Tension and the security situation worsened significantly in June 2020, following clashes between soldiers from both sides in the Galwan Valley, in the Ladakh region, in northwest India, which borders Aksai Chin – a territory claimed by the Indians, but controlled by China since 1962. More than 20 Indian soldiers died, with no record of the number of victims on the Chinese side.

It was the deadliest clash in the disputed territories in more than four decades and both Beijing and New Delhi accused each other of “provocations”, of “violating historical commitments” and of “responsibility” for the invasion of other people’s territory.

The latest clashes, which, according to the Indian Government, left “injured people on both sides”, took place at the end of 2022, near the disputed border between Arunachal Pradesh and Chinese Tibet, with India accusing China of “attempting to unilateral change of status quo”.

The Narendra Modi Government had already expressed its indignation with the Chinese authorities when they updated the official map of China, at the end of August last year, including in it disputed territories with India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, with Russia, with Nepal and with Taiwan, attributing, for example, 90% of the sovereignty of the South China Sea to the Chinese State.