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Border row no obstacle in India, China ties: Wang

PTI

A man walks inside a conference room used for meetings between military commanders of China and India, at the Indian side of the Indo-China border at Bumla, in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh on 11 November 2009.File photo/Reuters/Adnan Abidi/India

The territorial dispute between China and India was an “issue left over by history” and there was strong consensus between New Delhi and Beijing that it should not be an obstacle in improving bilateral relations, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Sunday.

Asked if demarcating the Line of Actual Control was one of the solutions to deal with the dispute, Consulate General of China Wang Dong Hua told reporters, “territorial dispute should not prevent us from working together in terms of strengthening economic relations.”

He disagreed with the assessment that political tensions marked Indo-China relations in 2009, saying the ties had instead improved steadily.

Wang said economic strengths of the two countries were complementary, noting, as an example, that while India’s prowess lay in IT and bio-pharmaceuticals, China was strong in manufacturing. “We see India as a strategic partner, not as a rival”.

Responding to a query, he described the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama as a “political monk”, who, he said, has an “unviewed face that will be exposed”.

Wang said “he (the Dalai Lama) is not a pure religious leader. I think you will know his hidden face…because…I quite agree…. that he (Dalai Lama) should not be doing anything in terms of involvement in politics. Our stand on this is consistent”.

Wang, who was speaking on the sidelines of a function to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of China, as also of the India-China Friendship Association of Karnataka, said the volume of bilateral trade between India and China decreased by 24.6 per cent in the January-October 2009 period to USD 34.3 billion due to global economic recession.

But, bilateral trade had grown from USD 7.6 billion in 2003 to USD 51.7 billion in 2008, a compounded annual growth rate of around 34 per cent, he pointed out.

Association General Secretary V Bhaskaran earlier said: “the Dalai Lama should be sent back from this country (India)”

Former Vice-Chancellor of Belgaum-based Vishweshwaraya Technological University, K Balaveera Reddy, advocated networking of higher education institutions in China and India by leveraging the power of satellite technology and internet.

Copyright © 2009 PTI

Published in Zee News