1.2212907-1524887836
Image Credit: Twitter

New Delhi/Beijing: India and China have agreed to improve communication between their militaries to maintain peace at the border, India's foreign secretary said on Saturday at the end of an ice-breaking trip to China by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi has spent the past 24 hours in the central Chinese city of Wuhan for informal meetings with President Xi Jinping, months after a dispute over a stretch of their high-altitude Himalayan border rekindled fears of war between the Asian nations.

'Handling differences peacefully'

Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters after Modi and Xi wrapped up their talks that both leaders had agreed their two countries had the maturity and wisdom to handle all their differences peacefully through talks.

"On the issue of the India-China boundary question, the two leaders endorsed the work of the special representatives in their efforts to find a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement," he said.

"And the two leaders also underscored that, in the meantime, it is important to maintain peace and tranquillity in all areas of the India-China border region," Gokhale said.

Leadership

The informal summit between the two leaders is underscoring their rivalry for leadership in Asia along with the possibility of cooperation.

Diplomats described the moment as a part of the taking India-China relations "on a forward-looking path".

China-India relations date back centuries but are characterized by competition for leadership in Asia.

The countries fought a border war in 1962 and last year engaged in a 10-week standoff in the neighbouring state of Bhutan.

New Delhi has also been alarmed by China's moves to build ties with Indian Ocean nations including India's longtime rival Pakistan.

 

Informal meeting

Billed by both sides as an informal meeting rather than a summit, with none of the pomp and ceremony of a state visit such as 21-gun salutes, the two men held talks on Friday that lasted far longer than expected. It also included a personal tour of a major museum by Xi.

Chinese state media has praised the tone of the trip.

The overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily said in a front page commentary on Saturday "two great countries ought to have great cooperation", and showed a large picture of the two leaders shaking hands.

"There is reason to believe that this Wuhan meeting will increase mutual trust, manage and control disputes, deepen cooperation and lead to a new phase in China-India relations," it said.

"It is quite clear that strategic agreement between the two countries far exceeds the specific differences, and the need for cooperation far exceeds local friction," it said.

'Natural partners'

The official China Daily said in an editorial there was no denying mutual suspicion was keeping the two countries from working together.

"Yet neither Beijing nor New Delhi calls the other an enemy, which means both expect bilateral ties to improve. Indeed, China and India are natural partners," it said.

Despite the upbeat statements, which on Friday included Modi inviting Xi to India for a similar informal summit next year, the nations' differences are significant.

As well as disputes over stretches of a 3,500 km (2,200 miles) border, they are bumping up against each other in the Indian Ocean and squabbling over Xi's signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

India signalled as recently as Tuesday its opposition to the grand trade and transport plan because one of its branches runs through Pakistani-administered Kashmir, which India claims.

More border outposts

Meanwhile in New Delhi, the Times of India reported that the Modi government will build 96 more Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) border outposts (BoPs) along the 3,488 km long India-China border.

The new posts will help reduce the time taken by the troops to travel on this arduous terrain, help in supplies of rations to the posts located at the altitude of 12,000 to 18,000 feet and also help in keeping a close watch over the Chinese army build-up in a tense situation.

India's Ministry of Home Affairs is already discussing the matter with the ministries of external affairs and defence and the new BoPs are likely to be given approval soon.

The 96 additional border posts will the total to 272 BoPs on India-China border. 

Till now, the force has 176 BoPs on the India-China border.

Officials added that ITBP will raise nine more battalions (around 9,000 men) for its new outposts, likely to be constructed in a couple of years, for which a proposal is already pending.

The development comes even as government is making other efforts to provide a comfortable working environment to the troops at high altitudes.

The MHA recently approved that ITBP will have 54 temperature controlled integrated BoPs.  

Boldest attempt

The leaders of India and China met in their boldest attempt yet at rapprochement just months after a dispute over a stretch of their high-altitude Himalayan border rekindled fears of war.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to the Chinese city of Wuhan for two days of talks with President Xi Jinping.

The talks on Friday and Saturday were mostly without aides, aimed at ending decades of distrust that has deepened as China, with an economy five times bigger than India’s, asserts itself in the region.

Long border

Their differences are significant: as well as disputes over stretches of a 3,500-kilometre border, the Asian giants are bumping up against each other in the Indian Ocean and squabbling over Xi’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

India signalled as recently as Tuesday its opposition to the grand trade and transport plan because one of its branches runs through Pakistani-administered Kashmir, which India claims.

For its part, China has been concerned about US efforts to draw India into a maritime “quad” of democracies, including Japan and Australia, in a part of the world they have begun calling the “Indo-Pacific” instead of the “Asia-Pacific”, which to some places China too firmly at the centre.

At the same time, pressure over trade that US President Donald Trump has put on China is driving its efforts to improve ties with others facing the heat from Trump, including India.

China needs to get India on its side, said Hu Shisheng, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceania Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a state-backed think-tank.

“As far as the United States is concerned, the Indo-Pacific is crucial, and for China, the Indo-Pacific is aimed at China.

So China needs to win India over as much as possible,” Hu said.

Both sides have stressed this is an informal meeting rather than a summit - without the pomp and flag-waving children - as a way, hopefully, get more done.

“It can provide a comfortable atmosphere for the two countries’ leaders to have full and deep exchanges on important issues of mutual concern,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, days after the announcement of Modi’s trip, which will be followed by another to China in June for a regional conference.

Chinese state television said in a commentary that often, more gets done at informal meetings, when people can speak their minds. It pointed to the success of informal talks Xi had with then-US President Barack Obama in 2013 in California.

Indian officials said there was no agenda and the two would likely address “misunderstandings” that had festered for years and escalated into a 73-day military face-off on a wind-swept Himalayan plateau last year.

“There is a realisation on both sides that we need greater communication at the highest political level,” said an Indian government source.

‘Not a threat’

Both countries have recently sought to accommodate each other’s concerns.

 

Last month, India issued an unprecedented ban on Tibetans holding a rally with the Dalai Lama in New Delhi to mark the 60th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

China regards the Tibetan spiritual leader who lives in exile in an Indian hill town as a dangerous separatist.

For its part, India was pleased when China dropped its objections to international efforts to put India’s arch foe, Pakistan, on a “grey list” of counties deemed to be making inadequate efforts to tackle terrorist financing.

China has long stood by Pakistan with political and military support, a sore issue for India which accuses Pakistan of harbouring terrorists. Pakistan denies that.

Ahead of the talks, China reassured Pakistan their relations were as firm as ever and would “never rust”.

The stakes are high for the world’s two most populous countries, which went to war in 1962 and continue to ramp up forces on either side of their border.

China claims more than 90,000 square kilometres ruled by India in the eastern Himalayas. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.

Wang Dehua, director of the Centre for South Asia Studies at Shanghai’s Tongji University, said the talks should help heal the wounds of last year’s border dispute.

“The Indian people should recognise that China is not a threat. Improving ties has only advantages for India,” Wang told the official Jiefang Daily.

Image Credit:
1.2212907-440944768
Image Credit: Twitter
View gallery as list