BEIJING, Jan 11.(APP): China and India will hold the 14th commander level talks on the Chinese side of the Maldo meeting point to discuss border disputes on January 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin confirmed on Tuesday.
He remarked that currently the situation on the border areas was stable on the whole and the two sides were in dialogue through diplomatic and military channels.
We hope India will work to help normalize the situation and move from emergency handling to a regular management phase on daily basis, he added.
The 13th round of the China-India commander level meeting was held on October 10, 2021 on the Chinese side of the Moldo-Chushul border meeting point and ended in a stalemate.
In a statement after the talks, Spokesperson for China’s Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Western Theater Command, Col. Long Shaohua had accused India of unreasonable and unrealistic demands and urged the country not to misjudge the situation.
He said that China had made great efforts to promote the easing and cooling of the border situation and fully demonstrated its sincerity toward maintaining the overall status of the relations between the two armies.
However, India still insisted on the unreasonable and unrealistic demands, which made the negotiations more difficult, he said.
Col Long said that China’s resolve to safeguard national sovereignty was firm and called on India to cherish the hard-won situation in the China-India border areas and abide by relevant agreements and consensus between the armies of two countries.
He also hoped that India will show sincerity, take action and work with China to jointly safeguard peace and stability in the border areas.
While commenting on a statement issued by Indian Army after the 13th round of talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Spokesperson Zhao Lijian had said that the Indian side statement had no factual basis.
During 13th round of talks, bearing in mind the overall interest of bilateral relations and the military to military level relations, the Chinese side made great efforts to promote the easing and cooling of border situation and fully demonstrated China’s sincerity, he said while responding to a question during his regular briefing.
However, the Indian side still persisted with unreasonable and unrealistic demands which made negotiation difficult, he said adding that China is firm in its resolve to safeguard national sovereignty.
Zhao Lijian remarked that the Indian side should avoid misjudging the situation and cherish the hard-won situation in the border areas.
Indian side should abide by the relevant agreements and consensus reached between the two countries and militaries, show sincerity and take concrete actions to jointly safeguard peace and stability in border areas with China, he added.
Temperatures in the forward areas in Ladakh drop to -30 Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit) around January. Troops from both sides used to retreat to their traditional summer holding positions but they have remained in place near the disputed border since the face-off started in May 2020.
The Line of Actual Control (LAC) separates the Himalayan territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China, whose frontier runs for 3,500km (2,200 miles), fought a deadly war over the border in 1962.
Since the standoff began in 2020, the Chinese have built dozens of large weather-proof structures along the LAC in eastern Ladakh for their troops to stay in during the winter. New helipads, widening of airstrips, new barracks, new surface-to-air missile sites and radar locations have also been reported by Indian media.
