India has once again issued a strong rebuttal to China’s attempts to rename certain places in Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing refers to as “Zangnan,” or the southern part of Tibet. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), responding to a fresh round of Chinese place-naming initiatives, dismissed the exercise as futile and reiterated India’s stance 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 stated 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 External Affairs ministry said in a statement. 

China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of its territory, has often released maps with several places within the northeastern state renamed. In 2024, China released a list of 30 new names of various places in Arunachal Pradesh, which India categorically rejected. 

The boundary dispute between India and China over Arunachal Pradesh has been a longstanding source of friction. The region shares a border with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Beijing claims the state as part of historical Tibet, while New Delhi has administered it as an integral part of India since independence in 1947 and the subsequent consolidation of its northeast.

The territorial dispute over Arunachal Pradesh has, in recent years, been accompanied by concerns over the use of water resources in the region. At the centre of these concerns is China’s decision to construct what is expected to be the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet’s Medog County-just before the river bends and flows into India as the Siang, and later becomes the Brahmaputra in Assam.

Tapir Gao, MP and state BJP unit chief, had described the Chinese project as a “water bomb” last month. “China has already decided to construct a dam which will have the capacity to produce 60,000 MW of electricity. This is not going to be a dam, but a water bomb to be used against India and other lower riparian countries,” Mr Gao said.

The BJP MP recalled the floods of June 2000, which he claimed were triggered by a similar release of water upstream, resulting in the destruction of over ten bridges in Arunachal Pradesh. “If China decides to release water from the dam in the future, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bangladesh and other countries of South East Asia will be devastated,” he warned.

He also supported the construction of a counter-balancing dam within Arunachal Pradesh to manage downstream disaster risks that could arise from sudden water discharges from the Chinese side.