Beijing, October 31 – China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on Thursday it hoped India would not make the boundary issue “more complicated”, when asked about recent moves by New Delhi to take forward long overdue plans to beef up infrastructure along the border.
In response to questions at a regular briefing about reports in India detailing plans to build 54 new sentry posts for the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun told reporters that China urged India “to maintain peace and stability in the border areas” rather than take steps “to make the (boundary) issue more complicated”.
He said the eastern part of the border areas was “still disputed”, referring to China’s claims on Arunachal Pradesh, which it refers to as southern Tibet. China holds that there is no dispute in the western areas, although China is occupying at least 38,000 sq km of territory claimed by India in the disputed Aksai Chin region.
On reports in India about a long-discussed plan to build a border road in Arunachal Pradesh, Colonel Yang reiterated that “the eastern part of the border areas is disputed”, adding that Beijing had “a consistent and clear-cut” stand on the dispute.
At the same time, he said both sides had made progress on ensuring that the boundary remained peaceful following a meeting of the consultation and coordination mechanism on border affairs held in New Delhi earlier this month.
“We hold the view that both sides should work hard together and move toward the same direction,” he said. “In the (October) meeting, both sides reached consensus on measures for maintaining a peaceful border area, among which many concerned military aspects.
For instance, both sides agreed to set up a timely meeting mechanism between military headquarters, neighbouring military districts and frontier forces from both counties, to establish more meeting posts in the frontier, to build a hotline which connects military headquarters from both countries, and to set up telecommunication links between frontier forces from both sides.”
He said the agreements were a “positive” development following the visit of President Xi Jinping to India in September. Xi’s visit took place amid renewed border tensions following a more than two week-long stand-off in Chumar in the western section of the disputed border, near Ladakh.
-INDIA TODAY
