NEW DELHI, India: China today signalled a tough stand in a border dispute with India, saying a solution was not possible unless New Delhi conceded some land in northeast India to Beijing.

“The fact is that 90,000 square kilometers (34,600 sq. miles) of Chinese territory in the eastern sector is under Indian occupation” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu ‘Shuquin said in an interview published in several Indian news Papers.

“We have no intention of recovering the totality of the disputed area,” Liu told a group of Indian reporters in Beijing. “But some adjustments will have to be made”.

Liu will head the Chinese delegation later this year at the next round of border talks with India, The talks in Beijing will be the seventh time the two sides have met since 1981.

“It is not difficult to resolve this ‘question if India adopts a reasonable and rational position”, Liu said. “It is not reasonable to insist that one side alone should make unilateral concessions. That will not be acceptable to the Chinese people.”

The border issue led to war between the two countries in 1962 and a 14-year break in diplomatic ties.

Liu rejected Indian charges that China occupies 38,000 square kilometers (14,000 sq miles) of territory in north India’s Jammu and Kashmir states.

“The fact is that China has never occupied a single inch of Indian Territory”, he said.

He said New Delhi could not ask for concessions in Kashmir unless it granted Beijing’s claim in the eastern sector, which includes India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

“China realizes that now a solution must be found on the basis of mutual accommodation. The eastern sector is the biggest dispute and the key to an overall solution” he added Liu said if India found it difficult to make concessions “then the border questions can be left aside for the time being and we could develop relations in other fields.”

‘The two countries signed a breakthrough agreement last November aimed at doubling two way trades to 160 million dollars in 1986.

 

Article extracted from this publication >> June 20, 1986