Invented Antiquity and Territorial Aggrandisement
Hadrian’s Wall/Roman Wall in the United Kingdom. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Sanjay Pulipaka and Mohit Musaddi
A few days ago (on April 02), China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs announced a list of standardised names for 11 places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. According to the Chinese media, these 11 places include “two residential areas, five mountain peaks, two rivers and two other areas.” In response, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson asserted that “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality.”
This was the third batch of standardised names issued by Beijing to territories in Arunachal Pradesh. On December 29, 2021, China announced that it had “standardised” in Chinese characters the names of 15 places in the state, including “eight residential areas, four mountains, two rivers and one mountain pass”. Similarly, in 2017, the Ministry renamed six places in the state. In fact, China refers to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh as ‘Zangnan’ and claims it as part of South Tibet.
While the exercise in 2017 was likely carried out amidst the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, the recent name changes were made even as the two countries continue to be engaged in a lengthy standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) since 2020. Even though the Chinese Defence Minister is due to visit India this month for the SCO Defence Ministers’ Meet, by assigning standardised Chinese names to places in Indian territory, Beijing has displayed that is in no mood to reduce tensions along the contested areas. On a broader scale, while the exercise is likely to have limited geopolitical consequences in the near future, name changes of territories area clear attempt by Beijing to legitimise its claim on regions it considers as its own. As the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson noted a few years ago, these places have been part of “China’s territory since ancient times”.
There are other historical and contemporary examples as well where China has claimed territories by attempting to change its name. In 2013, the Chinese Foreign Ministry refused to confirm that Okinawa Islands (which Beijing refers to as the Ryukyu Islands) belonged to Japan after Chinese scholars suggested re-examining the ownership of the archipelago based on the contention that the islands were paying tribute to China between 1372 and 1879. China also refers to Japan’s Senkaku Islands as the Diaoyu Islands and claims them as its own. The disputed South China Sea also has different names, with Vietnam referring to it as the East Sea and Philippines government agencies often preferring to call it the West Philippine Sea.
There is a perception among the Chinese that Vladivostok is a former Chinese territory and was taken over by Russians in 1860. In 2020, when the city marked the 160th anniversary of its founding, there was an outpour of anger and abuse from Chinese social media users “who claimed that the territory of Primorsky Krai, of which Vladivostok is the administrative capital, historically belonged to China”. While the Chinese government does not claim Vladivostok as a disputed territory, according to the New York Times, some Chinese tour guides and guidebooks refer to Vladivostok as ‘Haishenwai’.
In 2011, Tajikistan ceded about 1,000 square kilometres of land in the Pamir Mountain range to China as part of resolving their boundary dispute. Subsequently, by 2020, articles in Chinese media appeared arguing that the entire Pamir region belonged to China at one time and, consequently it should be returned to Beijing.
The Taiwan issue has always been sensitive for China, and Beijing has often exerted pressure to compel international agencies to comply with its diktats. For instance, in July 2018, Beijing instructed 44 international airline companies not to refer to Taiwan as a non-Chinese territory on their websites. As a result, the companies had to comply or else fear losing one of the world’s biggest aviation markets. During the 2022 FIFA World Cup, there were reports that China prevailed on Qatar to change the name of Taiwan to Chinese Taipei on its online visa application system.
The above examples raise an important question as to why China is so keen on assigning new names to territories in other countries. Name-giving is a process through which Beijing seeks to validate territorial claims through invented antiquity. While this tactic may not immediately alter boundaries, it is part of a longer term strategy of validating territorial aggrandisement by Beijing.
By that logic, drawing on its civilisational resources, India could assign names to places that are currently in China. For instance, there are some who contend Xinjiang and its adjoining regions used to have a significant Indian civilisation presence. In fact, some argue that Kashgar was referred to in ancient Sanskrit texts as Kāśa+giri, meaning bright mountain.
However, it is important to reflect on the Chinese approach of defining nation-state boundaries based entirely on ancient geography when the empires were at their peak and had large areas of land under their control. It would be absurd to even contemplate that Italy’s territorial boundaries should be defined by the spread of the Roman Empire.
Therefore, the Chinese style of nationalist imagination and defining national boundaries based on invented historical and civilisation presence from any point of time at random will open up a pandora’s box of revisiting many other current national boundaries. Countries in Asia and beyond must recognise and contest such attempts by Beijing based on arbitrary historical narratives.
Sanjay Pulipaka is the Chairperson, and Mohit Musaddi is the Fellow at the Politeia Research Foundation. The views expressed here are personal.
Politeia Research Foundation is a non-profit initiative that reflects on global and public policy issues, and engages with plural worldviews and diverse ideas.
