China on Tuesday said its approach toward improving relations with India remains unchanged, even as it justified its decision to assign new names to several locations in Arunachal Pradesh, an issue that has triggered a sharp response from New Delhi.
The remarks from Beijing came days after India rejected China’s latest attempt to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh, describing it as an effort to push “baseless narratives” that cannot alter the reality on the ground. The development also comes at a time when China has announced the creation of a new administrative county in Aksai Chin, an area India regards as part of its sovereign territory.
“India categorically rejects any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places that are part of Indian territory,” said External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.
Reacting to the statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun reiterated Beijing’s position, claiming that Zangnan—China’s name for Arunachal Pradesh, is Chinese territory and that Beijing does not recognise the Indian state.
Guo defended the move, saying China has the sovereign right to standardise the names of certain places in the Zangnan region and to release lists of names for locations there.
Despite the disagreement, the Chinese spokesperson said overall relations between the two countries remain stable and stressed that Beijing’s policy toward India has not changed.
“We hope both sides will move in the same direction and take steps that contribute positively to bilateral relations,” he said.
The dispute over naming places is part of a wider pattern of tensions between the two nations. On March 26, authorities in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region announced the establishment of Cenling county, a strategically significant area located near Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Afghanistan and close to the western sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Cenling is the third new county created by China in Xinjiang. India had earlier objected to the formation of Hean and Hekang counties last year, pointing out that parts of their jurisdiction fall within the region of Ladakh.
Since 2017, China has periodically released lists assigning Chinese names to locations in Arunachal Pradesh, a move that India has repeatedly opposed, maintaining that giving “fictitious names” to its territory cannot change the “undeniable reality.”
