Posted on 11/30/2004 2:29:11 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) - China should give up its claim over a remote northeastern state in India that is at the center of a four-decade old dispute between the two nuclear and economic rivals, India's prime minister told his Chinese counterpart Tuesday.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao held wide-ranging talks Tuesday that touched substantially on the border issue, a senior Indian official said on condition of anonymity.
The two leaders are in Vientiane to attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its regional partners.
Both sides agreed that they must move faster and settle the dispute despite Wen's cautious assessment about the possibility of a speedy resolution, said the official who was present at the 45-minute talks.
China claims sovereignty over a large section of Arunachal Pradesh state, which shares a 1,030-kilometer (650-mile) border with China's Tibet region.
The two sides fought a war in the region in 1962 but signed agreements in the 1990s to respect the current boundary pending a final agreement.
The official quoted Wen as saying: "To be extremely frank, resolving the border question is by no means an easy task and it calls for confidence and patience.''
Singh responded by saying: "I agree with you. We must deal with this in the spirit of accommodation. We are willing to be accommodating but both sides have to be mindful of the ground realities.''
The remark about "ground realities'' implied that China should accept the fact that Arunachal Pradesh is under India's control, its people consider themselves Indian and have no objections to being governed by an administration they elect regularly in state elections, said the official.
Also, it means India would be willing to accept China's control over a small portion of Kashmir in the north, said the official.
This dispute is separate from the major border problem India has with Pakistan over Kashmir.
Both China and India want to reduce the hundreds of thousands of troops they've posted on their frontier, but a clear territory delineation must come first.
Discussions on the border issue have been held since 1980s, but it wasn't until last year prime ministers of the two countries appointed special representatives to negotiate.
Four rounds of talks have been held - the last round, between India's National Security Adviser J.N. Dixit and China's Executive Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, was held earlier this month.
During the talks, Wen noted that friendship between China and India will have a "significant impact on the world,'' said the official.
"The shake-hand between you and me will be watched with attention by the whole world,'' Wen was quoted as telling Singh. - AP
This is what they want the Chinese to reject claim on.
http://arunachalpradesh.nic.in/
Arunachal Pradesh is an Indian state, and has been under Indian control since its independence, and became a state of the Indian Union circa 1987.
An interesting counterbalance to China's implacable claims to Taiwan.
Yup,, let other countries deal with China , or bog them down and kept busy, so the United States won't have to deal with it. If anything,, it will keep China's leaders busy, and military busy. Maybe,, it will be a Quagmire for China, and over extend their military resources that they can't UPDATE their military.
I believe China will soon settle the territory problems with India. Recently, China is negociating with a number of governments about border problems, e.g. Russia, Vietnam, India etc. The process is amazingly fast, where both east and west lines between China and Russia have been settled and the land territory between Vietnam and China is clearified. The process is accelerating. The north, west and south sides are cooling down. Only east is heating up.
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