It’s not for no reason that the spectre of two-front hostilities perennially looms over India. With New Delhi preoccupied militarily against Pakistan on the western frontier, Islamabad’s ‘all-weather’ ally China craftily struck from the east, reasserting its traditional territorial claims by weaponising cartography.

On May 11, China’s ministry of civil affairs released its fifth list of renamed locations in Arunachal Pradesh, a region Beijing claims as Zangnan, or southern Tibet. The renaming spree targeted 27 sites in Arunachal—15 mountains, five residential areas, four mountain passes, two rivers and a lake.

Since 2017, China has given 89 places in Arunachal Pradesh alternative names, part of a ploy to deepen its claims on Indian territory through administrative and symbolic acts. Yet, this latest provocation received little attention, overshadowed by the military tensions between India and Pakistan.

The Indian government, however, reacted strongly to Beijing’s move. A statement by the ministry of external affairs read: “We have noticed that China has persisted with its vain and preposterous attempts to name places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. 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 Indian government, on May 14, also banned the X account of Chinese state-run media Global Times for spreading disinformation during the India-Pakistan tensions. The social media handles of Turkish broadcaster TRT World were also blocked for the same reason.

China has been trying to push its territorial narratives by changing the names of Indian places, including in Arunachal Pradesh, time and again. Last year, in April, China rechristened 30 locations in Arunachal with Chinese and Tibetan names as part of its continuing bid to assert claim on the territory. India has consistently rejected these attempts and underlined that Arunachal Pradesh is its integral part.

Back in 2023, in the run-up to the G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi, China had played mischief by releasing a new official map that asserted territorial claim over Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin in Ladakh. In the 2023 edition of China’s ‘standard map’, uploaded by its ministry of natural resources on the website of its standard map service website, Aksai Chin and Arunachal were among the south and south-east Asian territories marked within the Chinese borders.

More recently, in retaliation, the Indian military had employed similar tactics by changing the names of close to 30 places in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The move was backed by extensive historical research. However, the proposal is yet to get a go-ahead from the Union government. South Block officials believe a tit-for-tat response is the only way to counter Chinese narratives.
China has consistently downplayed its border dispute with India as a roadblock to stronger bilateral relations. Last October, India and China had announced that they had resolved their border patrolling issues by disengaging from the friction points in eastern Ladakh, on the boil since 2020.

Yet, despite the military disengagement from two friction points of Demchok and Depsang, the Chinese side has not responded to India’s demand for a phased de-escalation and de-induction of militaries to peacetime locations. On the other hand, China increased its defence budget in 2025 by 7.2 per cent to over $245 billion (Rs 20.9 lakh crore) to rapidly boost military capabilities across the land, air, sea, nuclear, space and cyber domains.

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