India on Tuesday rejected China’s objection to Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh. New Delhi said that the northeastern state is an “integral and inalienable” part of India and Beijing’s territorial claims will not change that.

On Monday, Chinese spokesperson Wang Wenbin had said that Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh violated its “territorial sovereignty”. The visit was “not conducive to the peace and tranquility of the border situation”, Wenbin had said.

On Tuesday, external affairs ministry said in a statement that Indian leaders routinely travel to the state of Arunachal Pradesh as they do to any other state of India.

“Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” the foreign ministry said. “Objecting to such visits does not stand to reason and will not change the above reality.”

Shah’s visit comes days after China released a list of 11 places in the state that it had “renamed” as part of its attempts to lay claim over the region. China lays territorial claims over a large portion of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls “South Tibet”.

Beijing had released the first list of renaming six such places in 2017 after Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama had visited Arunachal Pradesh. It had released a second list of 15 places in December 2021.

New Delhi has repeatedly rejected such claims. On April 4, the Ministry of External Affairs had said that China’s attempts to “assign invented names” will not change the reality of Arunachal Pradesh being a part of India.