Daily Times
* Beijing urges Delhi against making disturbances in Arunachel Pradesh
BEIJING: India and China traded diplomatic jabs on Tuesday over a recent visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to a border region at the core of a long-standing dispute between the neighbours.
Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh on October 3 to campaign ahead of state elections there, but refrained from saying anything on China or the border dispute. Stressing that the state was "an integral and inalienable part of India", Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash expressed New Delhi's "disappointment and concern" at Chinese criticism of the trip, saying it could only harm ongoing border negotiations with Beijing.
Singh's visit was part of the "established practice in our democratic system" of political leaders touring regions going to the polls, he said. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres of its Himalayan territory, while Beijing claims all of Arunachal Pradesh, which covers 90,000 square kilometres. Prakash's remarks came just hours after his Chinese counterpart, Ma Zhaoxu, had voiced China's strong dissatisfaction with the visit.
Beijing: "We demand the Indian side address China's serious concerns and not trigger disturbances in the disputed region so as to facilitate the healthy development of China-India relations," Ma said in a statement. A formal ceasefire line was never drawn after a brief 1962 war, but the militarised border has remained mostly peaceful, especially since 1996, when the two sides signed a pact to maintain "tranquillity" on their frontiers.
Since then, Beijing and New Delhi have held 13 rounds of border resolution talks, most recently in August. Efforts to resolve the dispute come amid stepped-up political and trade contact between the world's two most populous nations, with China now India's second-largest trading partner. afp
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