India rejects China renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh; says move could impact process to normalise ties

PTI, NEW DELHI, April 12, 2026 : India on Sunday said China's move to assign "fictitious names" to Indian territory to manufacture "baseless narratives" cannot alter the reality but could impact ongoing efforts to normalise bilateral ties.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said New Delhi "categorically rejects" any "mischievous attempts" by the Chinese side to assign such names to places which form part of the Indian territory. India had reacted sharply when China resorted to renaming certain places in Arunachal Pradesh in May last year as well as in April 2024.

"India categorically rejects any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India," Jaiswal said.

"Such attempts by China at introducing false claims and manufacturing baseless narratives cannot alter the undeniable reality that these places and territories, including Arunachal Pradesh, were, are, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India," he said.

Jaiswal said these actions by the Chinese side "detract from ongoing efforts to stabilise and normalise India-China bilateral ties". "China should refrain from actions which inject negativity into relations and undermine efforts to create a better understanding," he said.

Jaiswal was responding to a media query on the issue. The relations between the two countries witnessed a major downturn following the 2020 eastern Ladakh border row. In the last one-and-a-half years, the two sides have initiated a series of measures to rebuild the relations. In a fresh list released recently, China has renamed certain places in the Indian territory. The Chinese Civil Affairs Ministry released the first list of the 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.