BEIJING: I
ndia and China have ended a crucial meeting of a joint border mechanism by reinforcing the primacy of peace on their disputed frontier as a prerequisite for fostering bilateral relations
“Both sides agreed that the maintenance of peace and tranquility on the border was an important guarantor for the further development of bilateral relations,” said a joint statement after the 6th Meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs. The meeting was held in Beijing April 28-29 between the Indian delegation was led by Mr Gautam Bambawale, Joint Secretary (East Asia) in the Ministry of External Affairs and the Chinese delegation led by Mr. Ouyang Yujing, Director General, Department of Boundary and Oceanic Affairs.
The timing of the meeting of the border mechanism in the middle of election frenzy in India underscored the centrality of maintaining peace on the frontier and minimising incursions by troops into each other’s territory that tend to vitiate the atmosphere between the Asian powers.
The meeting has reinforced an emerging template for developing bilateral relations – keeping border peace and economic relations going while keeping intractable issues like the boundary dispute for long-haul negotiations. This template has acquired an added salience after the Chinese incursions into the Indian territory a year ago sorely tested bilateral ties and exacerbated the trust deficit between the two Asian giants who are looking to move beyond the overhang of their 1962 war to forge multi-faceted pragmatic cooperation.
A landmark Border Defence Cooperation Agreement, which cohered the existing cross-border confidence-building measures and added some new CBMs, was signed during India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip to Beijing in October last year.
Besides procedures outlined in the BDCA, China has proposed a code conduct for the troops patrolling the border, which is being actively perused by New Delhi.
Given massive outrage in India that followed the Chinese incursions last year , China’s top leadership has also prioritised forging a multi-layered mechanism so that such incidents are not repeated.
“Both China and India attach great importance to maintaining peace and tranquillity at the border areas,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing.
“Over recent years in accordance with the bilateral relations as well as the actual conditions at the border areas, we have taken positive steps in safeguarding tranquillity and peace in the border areas and we have reached series of agreements including the agreement on border defence cooperation,” he said.
“All this has played a very important role in promoting our mutual trust as well as stability in border areas,” he said.
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