China continues to claim Arunachal Pradesh as 'Zangnan,' asserting it is part of South Tibet, while India firmly maintains the state is an integral part of its territory. The dispute centres on the McMahon Line drawn at the 1914 Simla Convention, which China never accepted. Tensions have periodically risen over infrastructure development, Chinese renaming of places in Arunachal, and troop movements along the Line of Actual Control, making this one of the most persistent unresolved bilateral territorial disputes in Asia.

The Arunachal Pradesh dispute is rooted in competing historical claims over the eastern sector of the India-China boundary. The McMahon Line, established during the 1914 Simla Convention between British India and Tibetan representatives, defines approximately 890 km of the boundary between India and what is now China's Tibet Autonomous Region. China rejects this line on the grounds that Tibet lacked the sovereign authority to sign such an agreement, and that China was not a signatory.

China refers to Arunachal Pradesh as 'Zangnan' (South Tibet) and has periodically 'renamed' locations within it using standardised Chinese names — doing so in multiple rounds (2017, 2021, 2023). This renaming exercise is a soft-power assertion of territorial claim, not a de facto administrative change.

India's legal and constitutional position is unambiguous: Arunachal Pradesh became a Union Territory in 1972 and a full state on 20 February 1987. It has an elected government, sends members to Parliament, and is fully integrated into India's federal structure.

The broader boundary question is managed through the Special Representatives mechanism, established in 2003, under which both sides have held over 20 rounds of talks without a final settlement. The 1993 and 1996 bilateral agreements on maintaining peace and tranquility along the LAC remain the operative frameworks. The Tawang region within Arunachal carries additional strategic and religious significance — it houses one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries outside Tibet, making it culturally contested as well.