India and China on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) sparred over New Delhi’s decision to standardise the names of 28 features in Ladakh, including some along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that had seen skirmishes between the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army during a four-year standoff.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) said it has “never recognised” the Union Territory (U.T.) of Ladakh, which was created in 2019, and called the naming of the areas by the Survey of India as “illegal and void”, a charge that New Delhi rejected. 

“The U.T. of Ladakh is an integral and inalienable part of India. No amount of denial by the Chinese side can change this established fact,” said Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. “Identifying these [28] places formally on the Survey of India map of the U.T. of Ladakh is aimed at facilitating their accurate recognition and better awareness among the public at large,” he explained.

The spokesperson was responding to comments made by the Chinese Foreign Ministry earlier in the day. To a question at the Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing, spokesperson Mao Ning said that China has “never recognised the so-called 'Union Territory of Ladakh' unilaterally and illegally established by India, and firmly opposes the so-called 'standardised names' publicised by India”.

“This move by India is illegal and void, and does not change the fact that the western sector of the China-India boundary belongs to China,” she added, referring to the August 5, 2019 decision by the Indian government to bifurcate the State of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories and dilute Article 370 of the Constitution. At the time, Beijing had issued a sharp statement accusing India of undermining “China’s territorial sovereignty by unilaterally changing its domestic law”.

Beijing had also made such a claim in September 2020, reacting strongly to an Indian project to construct high-altitude all-weather roads in Eastern Ladakh.

A first in 2 years

This is the first such spat in the past two years, however, since the two sides re-established diplomatic and travel links between the two countries in an effort to normalise relations after the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2024, indicating that the map remains a major point of contention.

The comments came 10 days after the Survey of India announced the standardisation of the names of specific relief features in Ladakh, including 11 peaks, five mountains, six land areas, two glaciers, two passes, one valley, one river, one lake, and one other water body. 

The features identified on October 3 included Gogra as a “land area”  and Hotsprings as a “waterbody”. Both features abut Patrolling Point 15 (PP-15), which had seen heavy mobilisation during the India-China tensions at the LAC after the deadly clashes at Galwan in June 2020. The two armies agreed to stand down from the PP-15 point in September 2022, as part of a series of disengagement negotiations.

Cartographic tit-for-tat

Both India and China have been reinforcing their territorial claims in both the Western and Eastern sectors by naming features in official maps and creating administrative jurisdictions in a series of cartographic tit-for-tat measures going back many years.

In March this year, the local government in China’s western Xinjiang region announced the establishment of what it called “Cenling county” in the Aksai Chin region, to be administered under Kashgar prefecture. The establishment of the county was approved by the Communist Party’s Central Committee. India claims 38,000 square kilometres in Aksai Chin that is currently under China’s control and administered under the Xinjiang region.

India said then that it “categorically rejects any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India”.

India has also rejected China’s moves to issue names for towns and features in Arunachal Pradesh in its official maps, with Beijing claiming as much as 90,000 square kilometres in the Eastern sector.