India, China agree to keep border peace

K V Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 24

India and China underscored the importance of taking measures to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas emphasising it as a pre-requisite for continued growth of bilateral relations while deciding to expand contacts between border forces.

The iteration came at the end of the first-ever boundary talks under the Modi Government between the Special Representatives (SR) of India Ajit Doval and Yang Jeichi of China held here on Monday.

The State Councillor Yang today called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and conveyed greetings of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Prime Minister Modi is expected to visit China before the end of his first year in office this May.

Both sides also utilised the opportunity to exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest and agreed to enhance their consultations on counter-terrorism, maritime security, climate change, reform of United Nation and civil nuclear energy cooperation, the last two being of special significance to India.

"Both the sides agreed to take necessary steps to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas which is a pre-requisite for continued growth of bilateral relations. The Special Representatives expressed satisfaction at the growing interaction between the border forces of the two countries and agreed to further expand such contacts as these constitute important confidence building measures for maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement here today.

Both Doval and Yang undertook a comprehensive review of earlier rounds of the talks, expressed satisfaction on the progress made in the negotiations and emphasised commitment to the three-step process to seek a "fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the border question at an early date".

"I want to emphasise that the early settlement of the boundary question is in the fundamental interest of the two countries. It is also an effective way to remove obstacles getting in the way of bilateral ties," a PTI report from Beijing quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying stating this in response to question about progress of the talk adding that the boundary question was a problem left over from history.

The visit of Yang to India for the 18th round of talks on the boundary issue is under the mechanism evolved during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to China in 2003 to sort out the dispute over 4000-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Beijing maintains that the dispute is restricted to 2000 km, essentially Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern sector which it claims as part of southern Tibet while New Delhi asserts it covers the western sector, including Aksi Chin occupied by China during the 1962 war.

The two sides agreed to build on the momentum provided by President Xi Jinping's September 2014 visit to further expand bilateral relations in areas such as railways, smart cities, vocational education, skill development, clean and renewable energy and manufacturing sector.

Both sides agreed that growing linkages between Indian states and Chinese provinces through sister-city and sister-province mechanism plays an important role in deepening bilateral ties.

During the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Beijing in 2013, India and China signed agreements relating to border, including hotlines between military commanders, sharing data on trans-border rivers besides establishing sister-city partnership between Delhi-Beijing, Kolkata-Kunming and Bangalore-Chengdu.