India on Sunday pushed back sharply against China's latest attempts to assign new names to geographical locations within Indian territory, as Beijing announced the creation of a new administrative county in its Xinjiang province near sensitive border regions.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal made New Delhi's position unambiguous, saying India "categorically rejects any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India."
Jaiswal stressed that renaming locations does not alter their sovereign status in any way.
"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," he said.
He also warned that such unilateral moves by Beijing risk undermining the diplomatic progress made between the two countries in recent months.
"These actions by the Chinese side detract from ongoing efforts to stabilise and normalise India-China bilateral ties. China should refrain from actions that inject negativity into relations and undermine efforts to create better understanding," Jaiswal added.
Also Read: ‘PoK will return to India sooner or later, they are our own’: Rajnath
The diplomatic pushback comes after China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region government officially sanctioned a new county called "Cenling" on March 26, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.
The new county falls under the jurisdiction of the Kashgar prefecture and is situated near the Karakoram mountain range, in close proximity to the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Its location carries significant geopolitical weight, given its proximity to some of the most contested and strategically sensitive border zones in the region.
This is the third time in just over a year that China has carved out a new administrative county within Xinjiang.
India has previously raised formal objections with Beijing over the creation of "Hean" and "Hekang" counties, maintaining that portions of the land designated under those jurisdictions actually belong to the Union Territory of Ladakh.
Hean county, in particular, covers a large section of the Aksai Chin plateau — territory that has been under Chinese administration since the 1962 war but which India continues to assert as part of Ladakh.
The administrative hub for the new county, Kashgar, is a historically significant city on the ancient Silk Road and serves as a key link between China and South and Central Asia.
It is also the starting point of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the multi-billion dollar infrastructure project that runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir — a project India has consistently opposed as a violation of its sovereignty.
The precise boundaries of the new Cenling county have not yet been officially disclosed, but its positioning near multiple sensitive border zones has heightened concern over China's ongoing pattern of administrative restructuring along international frontiers.