China and India move to ease border tension
China and India move to ease border tension
NEW DELHI (Reuter): India and China, which fought a border war in 1962, yesterday initialed an agreement to minimize the possibility of armed conflict on their frontier, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.
PTI said the confidence-building measure was initialed by the countries' foreign ministers after talks between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Indian Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda.
Details of the agreement were not immediately available.
The border issue is viewed as central to problems between the two countries, home to one-third of the world's population.
Jiang arrived in New Delhi on Thursday for a state visit, the first to India by a Chinese president. He will leave on Sunday for Pakistan, India's traditional rival.
PTI said three other agreements were initialed -- on preventing illegal drug trafficking, direct shipping links and an Indian consulate office in Hong Kong after mid-1997.
"India and China today agreed to take vital confidence- building measures to minimize the possibility of any armed conflict at their borders...," it said on the frontier pact.
The two countries fought a border war in 1962 and troops are still deployed along both sides of the rugged line of actual control.
India and China signed an agreement in 1993 to ease tension along their 4,000 kilometer frontier during a visit by former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao to Beijing.
In August 1995, India and China agreed to pull back their troops from four border posts in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, parts of which are claimed by China.
PTI gave few details of the other agreements but said the shipping pact envisaged direct links between the two countries that were expected to result in a rise in Sino-Indian trade.
According to official statistics, two-way trade totaled $1.16 billion in 1995 after $895 million in 1994.
On Thursday, Jiang and Indian President Shankar Dayal Sharma said friendship between their countries could be a key to world peace.
"I am convinced that the Chinese and Indian peoples joining together will be a great force and an important guarantee for peace in Asia and the world at large," Jiang said.
Sharma also made an apparent reference to China's friendship with Pakistan, saying New Delhi was concerned by actions that adversely affected regional security.
Pakistan has enjoyed close relations with China since the 1960s. In recent years, the two countries have been accused of secret nuclear and missile deals, which both have denied.
Sharma said India was prepared to work with China to resolve differences on the boundary issue.
On ties between India and China, one Western diplomat said: "Indian policy makers generally agree that China is a problem to be managed.
"The strategy is to try to build elements of stability into the relationship that will survive ups and downs and any change in Chinese policy."
There were several protests by pro-democracy Tibetan exiles in the Indian capital yesterday. On Thursday, exiles burnt an effigy of Jiang and the Chinese flag.
India support China's jurisdiction over Tibet, which Beijing annexed in 1950.