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Rejecting China's claim on Arunachal Pradesh, former Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla has said that the northeastern state will always remain part of India and that fact will not change despite Beijing resorting to all sorts of tactics.
In an interview with ANI, Shringla noted that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has given a fitting response to China's actions, wherein he asserted that Beijing's actions will not change the status quo and that all these areas will remain part of India. On being asked about China's attempt to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh, Shringla said, "I think External Affairs Minister Dr Jaishankar has given a fitting response. He has said that just because I start naming the houses that are in your position, it doesn't mean they become my houses. All of these areas have, are and will be a part of India, he has said, and that status quo will not change." "So, no matter what you do, you may name them, you may do all sorts of, you know, you may resort to all sorts of tactics, but it is going to be always a part of India. So, these places that they have named are within Indian territory and that fact will not change," he added. Taking a jibe at China over its claims on the state of Arunachal Pradesh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said that changing names won't have any effect and that the northeastern state was, is and will always be India's part. While addressing a press conference in Gujarat, Jaishankar said, "If today I change the name of your house, will it become mine? Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be a state of India. Changing names does not have an effect." "Our army is deployed at the Line of Actual Control...," EAM added. Recently, China released a list of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to assert its claim over India's northeastern state. India has been rejecting such renaming of places by China. According to a March 30 report in its state-run Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released a fourth list of standardized geographical names in Zangnan, the name that China uses for Arunachal Pradesh. According to the official website of the ministry, 30 additional publicly used place names in the Zangnan region have been officially revealed, the Global Times report said. The Chinese Civil Affairs Ministry released the first list of the so-called standardised names of six places in Zangnan in 2017, while the second list of 15 places was issued in 2021 followed by another list with names for 11 places in 2023. Set to take effect from May 1, 2024, 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 authorization," the Global Times report said. Reacting to Beijing's action, the Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday firmly rejected China's attempt to rename several places in Arunachal Pradesh saying assigning invented names will "not alter the reality that the state will always be an integral and inalienable part 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 official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said in an official statement. India has repeatedly rebuffed such attempts by China to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh.(ANI)
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