China ‘renames’ places to push expansionist agenda. What will India do it for?

India may be about to give China a taste of its own medicine — or so the messaging suggests.

Just like China assigns new names to places it claims as it own, such as Tibet and India’s Arunachal Pradesh, India may be about to assign new names to places in China-controlled Tibet.

Tibet is a historical and cultural region that was for long a buffer between India and China — until 1949-50. That was when the Chinese communist regime invaded the region and took over its direct control, beginning its ongoing repression of the natives. China not just occupied Tibet but also declared India’s Ladakh (part of the Jammu and Kashmir state at the time) and Arunachal as parts of Tibet and claimed as its own.

While Tibet’s territorial claims do predate the Chinese takeover of the region, it was only after the communist regime took over the region that proactive steps were taken by Beijing to peddle a narrative to justify not just Tibet’s occupation but also claims on Ladakh and Arunachal.

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In response to China’s ‘cartographic aggression’, India has now planned to assign new names to two dozen places in Tibet, according to a report in The Diplomat.

The report says that New Delhi is convinced that the renaming is part of a Chinese campaign to boost its territorial claims — and scholars agree. Anushka Saxena, a China researcher at the Takshashila Institution, says China has adopted this strategy both internally and externally for a long time. She says the idea is to set the narrative that will boost Beijing’s version of history and territorial claims as these new names acquire mainstream usage over time.

Following the Chinese occupation, Tibet was renamed as Xizang and China started referring to Arunachal as Zangnan — southern Tibet.

“China has indulged in the renaming exercise first and foremost to rewrite history to solidify claims over territories it says is disputed — even though they may not, in reality, be ‘disputed’. Secondly, the idea is to insert Chinese names in the usage of other countries and governments, so that associated territories only seem to be remembered as a part of the mainland. Thirdly, China also uses the renaming exercises as a response to actions that violate its so-called red lines,” says Saxena, a China Studies Research Analyst with Takshashila’s Indo-Pacific Studies Programme.

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Indeed, the Chinese renaming exercises in Arunachal have coincided with developments in the India-China relationship. The first such renaming happened in 2017 after the Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, whom China considers a separatist, stayed in Arunachal for a week. The next three episodes happened after the India-China border crises of 2020 that witnessed a paradigm shift in India’s China policy.

Following the Chinese incursions in Sikkim and Ladakh in 2020 and the Galwan Valley clash in which China killed at least 20 Indian soldiers, India went hawkish on China. It blocked Chinese investments, barred Chinese telecommunication giants from the rollout of the 5G network, banned Chinese apps, and pressured Chinese companies in the country to sell India units, aligned closer with the West, and indulged the Tibetans much more openly. These are too many red lines crossed for China.

Is India really renaming places in Tibet?

From media reports and chatter in the commentariat, it appears that a plan may indeed be afoot.

The Diplomat, which first broke the story, said that the plan is the brainchild of the Indian Army’s information warfare division. It said that the division consulted top research institutions like the Asiatic Society for the renaming exercise.

The plan has two parts, as per the report.

In the first part, the Indian names for places that China has assigned new names will be promoted to counter any narrative that China may want to peddle.

In the second phase, names of places inside Tibet in “ancient Indian languages” will be promoted to counter the names that China has imposed. The idea is to offer a strong counter-narrative to Chinese claims.

“Now India’s military has also finalised a list of 30-plus places in Tibet to be given new names, reclaiming from historical records their ancient names in Indian languages. This list, sources say, will soon be made public through media as part of a global campaign to offer a strong counter-narrative to Chinese claims on India’s Arunachal Pradesh state and other parts of the disputed border,” said the report.

The Diplomat further reported that the renaming of places inside Tibet is part of a tit-for-tat response.

In May, China published a list of Chinese and Tibetan names for 30 places inside Tibet — the most immediate basis for the tit for tat response.

India’s ‘renaming’ exercise in Tibet may be tricky

While promoting Indian names for Indian places over the Chinese-imposed names is understandable, the assigning of Indian names to places inside Tibet may be tricky. For one, India does not claim Tibet as its own in any way. Even though India and Tibet have long had cultural and trade ties, Tibet was never part of India and was a separate entity.

Saxena of the Takshashila Institution says ‘renaming’ is a very specific process of culturally and politically staking claim to a territory by referring to it by a name that was used to describe it in the past — which the current occupier has deposed and which needs to be restored. Since India is not staking a claim to Tibet, the exercise —if it is indeed carried out— is expected to be much more nuanced.

“In renaming places controlled by another nation, the goal is to contend a rival nation’s claim to that territory and project your own sovereign authority. If the purported Indian list only highlights the old Tibetan names alongside the new Chinese ones, then it would not be right to say that it is ’re-naming’. It will only be a re-minding’ exercise,” says Saxena.

#VantageOnFirstpost: Former US House @SpeakerPelosi targeted Chinese president Xi Jinping after she met with the @DalaiLama in India's Dharamsala. While western democracies have sharpened their language on Tibet, India has been sending mixed signals. @Palkisu tells you more. pic.twitter.com/OlSmR5nAiG

— Firstpost (@firstpost) June 19, 2024

The messaging to China with leaks about the reported renaming exercise is part of a sustained campaign to tell China that if you would not respect our sensibilities, we would not respect yours. But it does not mean India is rethinking the fundamentals of the Tibet question. The fundamentals are quite settled — both for India and even the Tibetans. India accepts the One China Policy and acknowledges Tibet as a part of China and the Tibetans in exile, including the Dalai Lama, call for a middle-path approach and real autonomy within China and not outright independence.

Earlier this week, a US Congressional delegation comprising House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi met the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. The visit had the approval from New Delhi and indicated that New Delhi is willing to flex its cards more as China continues to remain dismissive of Indian concerns and belligerent in staking its baseless claims. It is in this context that messaging regarding the reported renaming exercise should be seen.

Do names really matter though?

To find an answer to this question, look at the South China Sea — or the West Philippine Sea, the East Sea, or the Southeast Sea.

These names refer to the contested waters of the Western Pacific Ocean bordering the mainland of Southeast Asia. Geographically, these waters are bound within the Taiwan Strait to the northeast; Taiwan and the Philippines in the east; the island of Borneo in the southeast; and the Gulf of Thailand in the south.

The waters are one of the most contested in the world. While China claims all of it, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam challenge the claim and advance their own claims. China’s activities in the region are becoming aggressive by the day and the freedom of navigation is one of the most pressing issues in the region. The Chinese belligerence in the region is also central to the push of the Quad countries for a free, fair, and open Indo-Pacific region.

Just this week, Chinese coast guard personnel attacked the Philippine Navy in the region.

#VantageOnFirstpost: The situation in the South China Sea is heating up after a violent confrontation between the Philippine Navy and the Chinese Coast Guard.

The incident, which is by far the most dangerous escalation yet, has raised fears of a wider conflict in the region.… pic.twitter.com/rd24oskYlx

— Firstpost (@firstpost) June 20, 2024

The fact that the world today knows these waters primarily as the South China Sea is a testament to the power of nomenclature. To be sure, the case of the South China Sea is not the same as the Indian Ocean. While the usage of the ‘Indian Ocean’ is not disputed, the usage of the South China Sea is but the word has still acquired widespread acceptance and China has used that acceptance to advance its claim.

Saxena tells Firstpost that China has used such names to its benefit both internally and externally. She cites that the Chinese name of Xinjiang, the region in China’s west of native Uighur Muslims systemically persecuted by Beijing, has completely replaced the historic name of East Turkestan and now has mainstream acceptance — just like with the South China Sea.

“Today, we see a similar occurrence in the ‘South China Sea’, which countries in the ASEAN would regularly say is actually the ‘West Philippine sea’, but the name ‘South China Sea’ is so deeply ingrained in official lingo today, that it is what most of us refer to it as,” says Saxena.

Even in what China calls East China Sea, the features are disputed to the extent that different parties refer to them with their own names. Japan refers to the three ‘Pinnacle islands’ as ‘Senkaku’, Taiwan as ‘Tiaoyutai’, and China as Diaoyu.

Even though the wider world does not dispute the name, China has increasingly been rejecting the name Indian Ocean. China, along with Russia too in the recent past, has used the name Asia-Pacific for the region that India, the United States, and much of the world call Indo-Pacific.

So, using nomenclature for one’s geopolitical gains and for staking claims is widespread in China’s context, but it is not unique in the global context, says Saxena.