3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Apr 13, 2026 04:33 AM IST
In a sharply worded statement, India said on Sunday that it “categorically rejected any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India”.
The Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Randhir 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.”
“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 better understanding,” he said.
This response came as reports said China has set up a new county in its Xinjiang province near Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and the Afghanistan border in an apparent move to beef up security along the narrow Wakhan Corridor to curb infiltration of Uyghur separatist militants.
The county, named Cenling, is located near the Karakoram mountain range and close to the borders with PoK and Afghanistan, underscoring its strategic significance, according to news agency PTI. This is the third new county established by China in Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim Uyghur region, in just over a year.
This is not the first time Delhi has criticised the Chinese move to rename the places. This has happened at least five times in the past few years.
India last year lodged a protest with China over the creation of Hean and Hekang counties, stating that parts of their jurisdiction fall within its union territory of Ladakh. Hean includes much of the disputed Aksai Chin plateau, which is part of Ladakh occupied by China in the 1962 war and has remained a focal point of the India-China border dispute.
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In May last year, while rejecting China renaming some places in Arunachal Pradesh as “vain and preposterous”, India had said such attempts will not alter the “undeniable” reality that the state “was, is, and will” always remain an integral part of India.
New Delhi’s reaction came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for 27 places in Arunachal Pradesh, including 15 mountains, four passes, two rivers, a lake and five inhabited areas. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet. It is, in fact, an old Chinese habit to periodically issue lists of new names for locations in Arunachal. India describes the names as “inventions” by China, and has consistently and unequivocally dismissed them. China has issued several such lists since 2017, claiming to “standardise” names in accordance with regulations issued by State Council.
