"If I change the name of your house, will it become mine?” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Indian foreign minister, said.
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said it had “standardised” the geographical names of 30 locations in Zangnan, the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh.
“Arunachal Pradesh was an Indian state, is an Indian state and will remain so in the future. Nothing will be gained by changing names.”
Tensions have been ramping up along the Line of Actual Control that separates India and China since May 2020, when soldiers from each side engaged in hand-to-hand combat and beat each other with nail-studded bats.
At least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers died in the skirmish.