China has once again renamed places in Arunachal Pradesh, this time as many as 27 of them, to reinforce its claim over the Indian State which it calls Zangnan. China claims that its effort to “standardise” the names is fully within its sovereignty. It maintains that Arunachal Pradesh is in South Tibet, and cites the presence of the second-most important Tibetan Buddhism monastery in Tawang and the birth of the sixth Dalai Lama in Arunachal to support its claim.

China’s territorial claims in Arunachal Pradesh and its maritime claims covering most of the islands of the South China Sea are grounded in its perspective of international law, which is heavily based on sovereignty. Though the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence figure in China’s vision of international law, the most elemental in China’s view is the principle of sovereignty.