Such an act goes against the sovereignty over territory which is the founding principle of international legal order.
Authors
Abhinav Mehrotra, Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Biswanath Gupta, Associate Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Summary
In the recent event of the India-China conflict, China has unitarily renamed 11 places of Arunachal Pradesh inside the Indian territory. This is the most recent attempt by China to continue its conflict with India without any provocation from the Indian side. For the last few years, China has continued to threaten or break international law between India-China contested borders. A recent publication from China has renamed 11 places along the map that shows them to be part of Arunachal Pradesh but claimed to be a part of the Southern Tibetan region. Out of these 11 places, one town, which is close to Itanagar, the capital city of Arunachal Pradesh, is also renamed. Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced this decision on Sunday, April 2, 2023.
This is China’s third attempt to rename the places of Arunachal Pradesh since 2017. In its first attempt, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs put out a list of six places inside Arunachal Pradesh. Lastly, in 2021, it again renamed 15 places of Arunachal Pradesh as a standard geographical name. The notification dated April 2 (No. 548) said, “According to the relevant provisions of the State Council on the management of geographical names, [China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs], together with relevant departments, has standardised some geographical names in southern Tibet. The third batch of supplementary place names for public use in southern Tibet (11 in total) is now officially announced.”
The 11 places named include five mountain peaks, two more populated areas, two land areas, and two rivers. Such an act goes against the sovereignty over territory which is the founding principle of international legal order and forms the basis for the implementation of the sovereign rights of a State as there seems to be greater recognition of the challenge from China and the need to recalibrate the Indian response.
Published in: News18
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