New Delhi
22 September 2006
China is trying to arrange another round of talks on the boundary
question before its President Hu Jintao visits India in November, according to Chinese
Ambassador to India Sun Yuxi.
Ambassador Sun on Friday said the special representatives of both sides -- National
Security Advisor MK Narayanan and Chinese Executive Vice Minister Dai Bingguo --
were trying to arrive at a framework.
"They are still busy working on it ... trying to work out a concrete framework," he said at a
news conference called to announce the hosting of "Shaanxi Culture Week" as part of the
China-India Friendship Year.
However, on a note of caution, he reminded his audience that decades of "isolation" that
began in the 1960s coupled with a "lack of understanding" between the governments and
peoples of India and China have not helped matters.
"The most important element in developing one's relations is exchange ... people should
be shuttling between our countries. Once there is understanding, trust and confidence
will follow and a logical result of that would be cooperation," he said. Otherwise, he
hastened to add, isolation might lead to misunderstanding and eventually, conflict or
war.
For its part, New Delhi expects to make some progress of political significance on the
boundary question before President Hu's visit. However, certain analysts do not seem to
share New Delhi's optimism. Dr Srikanth Kondapalli of Jawaharlal Nehru University says
some agreement can be expected on the current efforts for "clarification of Line of Actual
Control" but not on delimitation and demarcation. He says China and Vietnam agreed to
resolve their border dispute in 1999 and they are still doing the demarcation. "We
should give ourselves at least 10 years or more," he adds.
A report recently published by a United States-based institute paints a gloomier picture.
It said that the dispute is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future and this will
remain the case so long as China is able to bolster its strategic proxy Pakistan by
strengthening its hold along the Indo-Tibetan border while developing a hedge against
India's growing naval power.
The report suggested that a pattern of containment appears to be emerging along the
Sino-Indian border, where China is bolstering its military position by upgrading its
infrastructure. "[Just] as Beijing has long leveraged its claims against Indian-controlled
territory in Arunachal Pradesh to legitimise its occupation of Aksai Chin, it may now
leverage its superiority along the Sino-Indian border to remind Delhi of the costs of
conflict on the Indian Ocean," it read.
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