India has once again issued a firm rebuttal to China’s recurring efforts to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh—referred to by Beijing as “Zangnan,” or the southern part of Tibet. Responding to China’s latest round of place-naming exercises, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) dismissed the move as baseless and reiterated India’s unchanging position on the status of the state.
“We have noticed that China has persisted with its vain and preposterous attempts to name places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Wednesday. “Consistent with our principled position, we reject such attempts categorically. Creative naming will not alter the undeniable reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” the ministry stated.
This is not the first time China has released a list of renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh. In 2024, it published a list with 30 new names, which was promptly rejected by New Delhi. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of historical Tibet, while India has administered it as part of its sovereign territory since independence in 1947 and the subsequent political integration of the Northeast.
The boundary dispute remains a major point of contention between the two countries. Arunachal Pradesh shares a border with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and Beijing continues to assert territorial claims despite India’s firm rejection.
Apart from the territorial issue, there are growing concerns over China’s use of water resources in the region. At the heart of these worries is China’s decision to construct the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet’s Medog County, just before it enters India as the Siang, and eventually becomes the Brahmaputra in Assam.
BJP MP and Arunachal Pradesh state unit chief Tapir Gao recently referred to the project as a potential “water bomb.”
“China has already decided to construct a dam capable of producing 60,000 MW of electricity. This isn’t just a dam—it’s a water bomb that could be used against India and other downstream countries,” he warned.
Gao cited the devastating floods of June 2000, which he said were caused by a sudden release of water from upstream China. The incident destroyed over ten bridges in Arunachal Pradesh.
“If China decides to release water from the dam again in the future, it could spell disaster for Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bangladesh, and parts of Southeast Asia,” he added.
He also backed the construction of a counter-dam within Arunachal Pradesh as a strategic response to manage and mitigate potential risks from sudden water discharges on the Chinese side.
