US on China’s renaming of parts of India’s Arunachal Pradesh: “Strongly oppose any unilateral attempt.”
Days after China released a list of 30 new names for places in Arunachal Pradesh, the US on Tuesday criticized Beijing’s move as yet another “unilateral attempt” to reassert its territorial claims, according to a South China Morning Post report.
A US State Department official was quoted by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday as saying, “The United States strongly opposes any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims by incursions or encroachments, military or civilian, across the Line of Actual Control.”
Earlier, India declared that the Chinese action was “senseless” and that the state “is, has been, and will always be” an essential component of India, regardless of the “invented” names given to it.
In the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, China has continued its absurd attempts to rename locations. “We categorically oppose these endeavors,” spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal of the ministry of external affairs stated.
Giving made-up titles won’t change the fact that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and always will be an essential and unalienable component of India, the speaker stated.
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs has produced the fourth list of standard geographical names in Zangnan, the Chinese term for Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing says is a part of south Tibet, according to an article published on Sunday in the state-run Global Times.
India had already responded angrily when Beijing announced the third list of 11 Arunachal Pradesh locations with standardised names in April of last year.
Six locations in Arunachal Pradesh had their names standardized in a first batch that was published in 2017, and 15 locations in a second batch that was released in 2021.
The most recent hotspot was a tunnel in Arunachal Pradesh that Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened this month. Washington publicly sided with its Indo-Pacific ally New Delhi, infuriating Beijing, while China and India exchanged threats and asserted overlapping claims of national sovereignty.
During a press briefing, a State Department representative declared, “The United States recognises Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory.”
Washington was subsequently charged by Beijing with attempting “to provoke and take advantage of other countries’ conflicts to serve its selfish geopolitical interests.”
In order to counter Chinese activity in the Indo-Pacific area, the US has increased its cooperation with New Delhi in recent years after being mainly neutral on the issue for decades. This includes playing a more active role in sharing intelligence.
Source : By Firstpost via Dailyhunt
