‘Don’t confuse border management with resolving boundary question’

Beijing, Sep 26 (PTI):
India has told China not to shift goalposts and confuse managing the border affairs and restoring peace at the frontiers with the larger issue of the resolution of the boundary question, which is dealt with by different designated mechanisms.
After the standoff erupted in eastern Ladakh in May last year, India has consistently maintained that peace and tranquillity in the border areas are essential for the overall development of relations between the two countries.
Besides being neighbours, India and China are also large and emerging economies and it is not unusual to have differences and problems”, Indian envoy to China Vikram Misri said while addressing the 4th High-level Track II Dialogue on China-India Relations held. The key question is how to deal with them and ensure that outcomes are informed by reasonableness, maturity and respect for the maintenance of peace and tranquillity along our frontiers,” Misri said.
The meeting held virtually was co-hosted by the School of International Studies of Sichuan University (SCU), China Centre for South Asian Studies and Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) in which several former envoys and scholars took part. Besides Misri, China’s Ambassador to India Sun Weidong also participated in the meeting. Referring to multi-faceted dialogue held by the two countries since last year including several rounds of talks between the top military officials on both sides and the meetings between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to resolve the military standoff in Eastern Ladakh, Misri said: These contacts have resulted in significant progress on the ground . Following disengagement in the Galwan Valley in July last year, the two sides have been able to disengage from the North and South Banks of the Pangong Lake in February 2021, and most recently from Gogra in August 2021,” he said. The conversation between the two sides continues regarding the remaining locations and we hope that disengagement at the remaining friction areas will enable us to reach a point where we can pick up the threads of bilateral cooperation,” he said.
The experience of this multi-faceted dialogue over the last year and a half leads me to believe that we are well-equipped when it comes to resolving pressing issues in the bilateral relationship,” he said. Our leaders have in the past concurred that we must work out issues peacefully, prevent differences from turning into disputes and, most importantly, preserve peace and tranquillity in our border areas,” he said.