India rejects China renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh

India on Tuesday strongly rejected China's recent actions of renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh, calling them "senseless attempts."

The ministry of external affairs reaffirmed that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India and that China's renaming efforts will not change this fact, reports The Times of India.

"China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

We firmly reject such attempts. Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India,” MEA said in a statement.

China on Monday released a fourth list of 30 new names for various places in Arunachal Pradesh, despite India's strong opposition to these renaming attempts in the past. Set to take effect from May 1, the implementation measures stipulate in Article 13 that "place names in foreign languages that may harm China's territorial claims and sovereignty rights shall not be directly quoted or translated without authorisation," the state-run Global Times reported.

In response to China's actions, external affairs minister Jaishankar affirmed that Arunachal is and will always remain a part of India.

“If I change the name of your house, will it become mine? Arunachal Pradesh was an Indian state, is an Indian state and will remain so in the future. Nothing will be gained by changing names,” the minister said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh on March 9 to dedicate to the nation the Sela Tunnel built at an altitude of 13,000 feet evoked a response from China with Beijing staking claims over the area.

Also, a US spokesperson said on March 9 that "the US recognises Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory” and “strongly opposes any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims” over it.