3rd day of China-India border talks resume in Beijing
April 29, 2014, 10:27 am

An Indian national flag is flown next to the Chinese national emblem during a welcome ceremony for visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013 [AP]

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said details of the progress of the fourth meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs will be released when it is concluded on Wednesday.

Qin told a regular press briefing the two countries had taken positive measures in maintaining peace and stability in recent years, and signed an agreement on border control cooperation.

“We are willing to make joint efforts with India to explore ways to maintain border peace and stability and strengthen coordination on border issues,” Qin said.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, has concluded his week-long visit to the Asia- Pacific region, trying to drum up support for the much hyped Asia Pivot. China has criticised US attempts to, what it described,  as “containing China”.

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid had earlier in November last year said India will not be a part of America’s Asia Pivot.

“People speculate in this part of the world about US position on pivot, US position on rebalancing towards Asia; … and there are, obviously, methodologies of and connectivity that this part of the world has with China despite differences on certain dimensions. But we are, I think, lucky in that our position is that we will not be part of anybody else’s scheme of things; and, therefore, we are not,” he urged.

The new Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh had said earlier this month that irrespective of a possible change in government after the ongoing general elections, India’s China-policy will not change.

China and India share a 2,000-km-long border that has never been formally delineated. The two countries began discussing border issues in the 1980s.

The two sides signed an agreement in New Delhi in January 2012 to formally launch the working mechanism.

Under the agreement, the mechanism is headed by officials at the director general level from the Chinese Foreign Ministry and by officials at the joint secretary level from the Indian External Affairs Ministry, and is composed of diplomatic and military officials from both sides.

China and India are also working on the ambitious “Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-China” (BIMC) economic corridor, a region host to 40 per cent of the world’s population. The planned corridor would run from Kunming to Kolkata, linking Mandalay in Myanmar as well as Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh.

TBP and Agencies