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US ‘strongly opposes’ China’s renaming of areas along disputed Indian border

  • The response comes days after Beijing says it changed names of mountains, rivers and residential areas in the Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh state
  • New Delhi, a US ally, rejects China’s ‘senseless attempt’ and says Beijing is ‘altering reality’

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A valley near the disputed Indo-Chinese border in India’s Arunachal Pradesh state, which Beijing calls Zangnan and claims as part of the Tibetan autonomous region. Photo: AFP
Khushboo Razdanin Washington

Washington has criticised Beijing’s list of 30 new names for places along the 1,865-mile (3,000km) disputed Himalayan border between China and India, formally known as the Line of Actual Control, as yet another “unilateral attempt” to reassert its territorial claims.

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“The United States strongly opposes any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims by incursions or encroachments, military or civilian, across the Line of Actual Control,” a US State Department representative said on Tuesday.

On Sunday, the Post first reported about the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs’ fourth list of “standardised” names for places, including mountains, rivers, residential areas in the Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh state, which China calls Zangnan and claims as part of the Tibetan autonomous region.
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After the report was picked up by several Indian news outlets, New Delhi’s foreign affairs ministry rejected Beijing’s “senseless attempt” at “inventing” names and “altering reality”.

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