Indian Mountaineering Team Scales Unnamed Peak In Arunachal, Names It After Sixth Dalai Lama; China Irked

China on Thursday (26 September) criticised naming of a previously unnamed peak in Arunachal Pradesh after the 6th Dalai Lama by an Indian mountaineering team.

“It’s illegal, and null and void for India to set up the so-called ‘Arunachal Pradesh’ in Chinese territory,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a media briefing in Beijing.

This comes after an expedition by the National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports (NIMAS), under the Ministry of Defence, where a team led by Colonel Ranveer Singh Jamwal scaled an unnamed and unclimbed 20,942 ft high peak in Arunachal Pradesh and decided to name the summit after the sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso, who was born in 1682 in the region of Mon Tawang.

The decision to name the peak after the Sixth Dalai Lama was meant as a tribute to his timeless wisdom and his profound contributions to the Monpa community and beyond, as per a Defence Ministry press release.

Responding to the development, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Jian stated he was not aware of the specific naming.

"Let me say more broadly that the area of Zangnan is Chinese territory… This has been China’s consistent position,” he added.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu congratulated the NIMAS team for their accomplishment.

“Led by Director Ranveer Jamwal, they’ve successfully summited an untamed peak in the Gorichen Massif of Mon Tawang Region of Arunachal Pradesh, reaching an impressive 6,383 meters!” he wrote on X.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet.

Beijing has been renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh — which it calls Zangnan — since 2017 to assert territorial claims by terming the area an “inherent part of China’s territory”.

However, India has consistently rejected China's claims over Arunachal Pradesh, saying that the state is an "integral" and "inalienable" part of the country.

New Delhi has frequently dismissed Beijing’s attempts to assign “invented” names to the places in Arunachal, asserting that such actions do not alter the ground reality.

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