Border dispute a major challenge for Sino-Indian ties: China

China has said the border dispute with India and some “emerging new issues” pose a “major challenge” to the development of bilateral ties.

“As the two neighbouring countries, China and India have historical issues such as the border dispute and also some emerging new issues with the development of the relations between the two countries. How to deal with these issues is a major challenge for the relationship between the two countries,” Chinese Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Li Huilai said.

“The two sides have agreed to strengthen communication and dialogue, and to seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution through friendly consultations, and to manage and control these issues so that the overall development of the relationship between the two countries is not affected,” he said.

The Minister, however, did not specify what are the “emerging new issues” faced by the two countries.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was on a five-day visit to China last week, had said on Friday that the differences between India and China on the boundary issue and other matters may have “some marginal effect” on bilateral trade but businesses between the two sides has been expanding.

The two countries held talks in April this year to resolve the border dispute. While China claims the border dispute is confined to 2,000 km, mainly Arunachal Pradesh in eastern sector which it claims as part of southern Tibet, India asserts the dispute covered the whole of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) including the Aksai Chin occupied by China during the 1962 war.

The Chinese Assistant Minister also said that the main task that lies ahead for both China and India is to implement the consensus between leaders of both countries and strengthen the good momentum of the development in their ties.

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