India and China vow to end border dispute

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang share a light moment at a joint press conference in New Delhi yesterday.

Agencies/New DelhiThe Indian and Chinese premiers pledged yesterday to resolve a border dispute that has soured ties for decades, saying good relations between the neighbours were key to world peace. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, making his first foreign visit since taking office, said that Beijing was determined to build up trust with New Delhi as he and a team of ministers signed a series of joint agreements with India. His host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also stressed he regarded a good bilateral relationship as crucial to the wider region’s development. Li’s visit comes after a flare-up last month in a long-running border dispute between the two countries in a remote Himalayan region. New Delhi accused Chinese troops of intruding nearly 20km into Indian-claimed territory, triggering a three-week standoff that was resolved when troops from both sides pulled back. The Line of Actual Control between the nuclear-armed neighbours has never been formally demarcated, although they have signed accords to maintain peace since the border region saw a brief Indo-Chinese war in 1962. The number two in the Chinese leadership offered New Delhi a “handshake across the Himalayas” and said the world’s most populous nations could become a new engine for the global economy if they could avoid such irritants. “Both sides believe that we need to improve the various border-related mechanisms that we have put into place and make them more efficient. We need to appropriately manage and resolve our differences,” Li said at a joint news conference with Singh, where both men appeared relaxed. Singh said there was now a mutual desire to resolve the dispute and that a joint working group would be established to reach a lasting agreement. “We agreed that our special representatives will meet soon to continue discussions seeking an early agreement on a framework for a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable boundary settlement,” Singh said after talks with Li. “Peace and tranquillity on our border has to be preserved,” Singh added at the joint news conference. Li said the border dispute was a historical hangover and that there was a desire on both sides to overcome it. “We have established the principles for settling the question,” Li said. Speaking earlier, Li had said that good relations between India and China would “be a true blessing for Asia and the world.” “World peace... cannot be a reality without strategic trust between India and China,” he added. India’s envoy to China later told reporters that the boundary issue was complicated and both countries would study the mechanisms that are currently in place to deal with it. “The two prime ministers agreed that it (the issue) needed a detailed examination and that is what the special representatives have been charged with,” S Jaishankar told reporters at a briefing on the visit. The comments followed signing ceremonies on a series of issues ranging from agriculture to tourism and trade. There was also an agreement to resolve a dispute over a Chinese plan to build three more hydropower dams across the cross-border Brahmaputra river, known in China as the Yarlung Tsangpo. Singh said he had raised Indian concerns about the Chinese activities “on the upper reaches of our shared rivers.” Li also met Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, ruling Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi and senior figures from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. He heads today to India’s financial hub, Mumbai. Li said he chose New Delhi as his first destination on the four-nation tour to show how important India is for China and also because he had fond memories of visiting as a Communist youth leader 27 years ago. While most observers think it will take years to resolve the border dispute, recent statements from Beijing suggest China’s new leadership would like to speed things up, perhaps to shift its attention to disputes elsewhere in Asia, including the South China Sea. China is a key India trading partner, with two-way commerce totalling $66.5bn last year, and the two countries are hoping that figure will reach $100bn by 2015. Several major roads in the Indian capital were closed to prevent Tibetan protesters from disrupting Li’s visit, and exile groups complained of heavy-handed policing in their neighbourhoods. Police detained three Tibetan protesters near the luxury Taj Palace in the Indian capital where the Chinese premier was staying. After wrapping up his visit to India, Li is due to travel to neighbouring Pakistan before heading to Switzerland and Germany.Li shakes hands with United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson and Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi.