China says Sino-India border dispute complicated, takes time; Ready to discuss delimitation
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
China on Monday said that the boundary dispute with India is complicated and will take time to settle but at the same time, it expressed its readiness to hold discussions on the delimitation of the border and keep it peaceful.Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in his meeting with Chinese counterpart Dong Jun in Qingdao on June 26 proposed that India and China should solve the "complex issues" under a structured roadmap comprising steps to de-escalate tensions along the frontiers and rejuvenate the existing mechanism to demarcate the borders.Singh and Dong held bilateral talks on the sidelines of a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chinese port city of Qingdao, with a focus on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).Asked for China's reaction to Singh's remarks, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, "What I can tell you is that China and India have established the Special Representatives (SRs) mechanism on the boundary question and reached the Agreement on the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the China-India Boundary Question".The two sides have diplomatic and military communication mechanisms at various levels, she said."China stands ready to maintain communication with India on issues including delimitation negotiation and border management, jointly keep the border areas peaceful and tranquil, and promote cross-border exchange and cooperation," she said.Questioned about the prolonged delay in resolving the border issue despite 23 rounds of the SR-level talks, Mao said, "The boundary question is complicated, and it takes time to settle it"."The positive side is that the two countries have already established mechanisms at various levels for thorough communication. We hope that India will work with China in the same direction, continue to stay in communication on relevant issue and jointly keep the border areas peaceful and tranquil," she said.The 23rd round of the meeting of the SRs, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, was held here in December last year. It was the first meeting of the SRs since frictions had emerged in the Western Sector of the India-China border areas in 2020.The SRs in their meeting positively affirmed the implementation of the latest disengagement agreement of October 2024, resulting in patrolling and grazing in relevant areas.In his meeting with Dong, Singh had emphasised the need to create "good neighbourly conditions" to achieve the best mutual benefits and called for "taking action on the ground" to bridge the "trust deficit" resulting from the 2020 eastern Ladakh border standoff, according to an Indian readout.Singh also briefed Dong on the Pahalgam terror attack targeting innocent civilians, and India's Operation Sindoor to dismantle the terrorist networks in Pakistan.The Singh-Dong meeting came amid efforts by both New Delhi and Beijing to reset their ties following an understanding last October to end the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scroll.in
6 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
Why India's plans to counter China's mega dam in Tibet may falter
The Yarlung Tsangpo river originates in the mountains of western Tibet, and flows eastwards through the Tibet Autonomous Region. It then enters Arunachal Pradesh, where it is known as the Siang. Then, it flows further downstream to Assam, from when it is widely known as the Brahmaputra. This river is currently the site of an intensifying conflict between India and China over the control, ownership and use of its waters. While the threat of competition for this water has always loomed large, it began to take firmer shape in July, when China began construction of a 60-gigawatt hydropower project in Medog, just 30 km north of Arunachal Pradesh. The dam is set to be the world's largest in terms of hydropower capacity – the current largest one, the Three Gorges Dam, also in China, has a capacity of 22.5 gigawatts. These plans have alarmed India. Ministers have described the dam as a 'water bomb' that China can weaponise – either by withholding water to India, or suddenly releasing it in large volumes, which can wreak destruction downstream. In response, India has been pushing forward with plans to build the 11-gigawatt Siang upper multipurpose project in Arunachal Pradesh's Siang district. The dam at Siang could help mitigate some of these probable risks of the Chinese dam, Indian authorities have argued. The government had been considering the project since 2017, when the Niti Ayog proposed it. In February 2022, the Ministry of Jal Shakti formed a technical group to finalise the dam's height. A month later, they recorded their findings in a report, asserting that the Siang Upper dam 'will act as a flood cushion in case of sudden release of flood due to breach in natural and man made storages' in China's proposed dam at Medog. The document noted that the dam would also help regulate glacial floods on the river, and thus minimise losses to local livelihoods. But experts warn that the Indian dam will be of limited use in these respects. Rather than offer any protection from China, India's dam will only serve as a marker of its claims over the river, experts argued. As India sees it, 'if they do not construct a dam on the Brahmaputra, then we will not have water rights over the river', said Sumit Vij, assistant professor at Netherlands-based Wageningen University, who has worked extensively on the Brahmaputra basin. The dam has also raised fears of damage to the local environment and destruction of livelihoods. Thirteen villages in Arunachal Pradesh are to be completely submerged, including agricultural fields where the Adi community grows ginger, cardamom, and paddy. Locals are also concerned that the dam will restrict sediment flow in the river. Communities in the region have been protesting against the project since 2024, noting that the government was pushing it through without adequately consulting them, and by deploying armed forces and police to quell objections. Such conflict is regrettable, particularly since, to achieve the tangible results of the kind the government seeks, 'there has to be a diplomatic solution, a dialogue solution, and not a dam solution', Vij noted. He added, 'If they get into this dam race, India will harm its own environment much more than what is expected to be harmed by China.' Scroll emailed the Ministry of Jal Shakti, seeking responses to questions about the rationale behind the construction of the dam and its planned functions. This story will be updated if it responds. Flood moderation or hydropower generation? The government intends for the Upper Siang dam to perform more than one function. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu said the dam 'is not just about generating power, but also about maintaining the natural flow of the Siang river and mitigating potential flood risks from water releases by China'. But experts argue that such a goal is unrealistic. If the Siang dam's main function is to mitigate against the risk of floods, they said, other functions, such as hydropower generation, would have to take a back seat. A key reason for this is that since the Siang dam is a hydropower project, water levels of its reservoir would typically be kept high. Soumya Dutta, a visiting senior fellow at Impact and Policy Research Institute who works on energy and climate, noted that 'for creating electricity, dam officials keep the reservoir levels at full capacity to maximise the energy potential'. If China withheld water or released excess water, the Siang dam would allow India to 'moderate these daily cycles of peaks and troughs of water for a few days'. But because it would have a limited buffer capacity, 'beyond that, if there is a heavy rainfall or a sudden release, the dam will not be able to hold it back', Dutta explained. This risk is exacerbated by the geographical limitations the Siang dam will face. Dutta noted that a crucial feature of a dam designed for flood control is a large reservoir. The government is proposing to build a reservoir in Siang – but the geography of the region will only allow for a narrow and deep reservoir, as opposed to the wide ones found in some dams elsewhere in India, like the Nagarjuna Sagar dam, jointly operated by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to control floods. In such broad reservoirs, flood control can be carried out even by keeping water levels 'just a little low', Dutta said. In deep reservoirs, however, maintaining a buffer capacity to guard against floods would mean necessarily keeping water levels much lower, which would impinge on hydropower generation capacity. Dams that prioritise hydropower generation are, in fact, generally prone to causing flooding when there is a sudden inflow of water into their reservoirs – Dutta noted that many independent experts argued that is what happened in the 2018 floods in Kerala. Indeed, concerns about the construction of the Siang dam do not only revolve around its efficacy – but also about the effects that it might have downstream in Assam, if the dam releases large volumes of water to prevent flooding around it. 'Unfortunately, there is no bioregional understanding of rivers,' in India, said Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, visiting associate fellow at Delhi-based Institute of Chinese Studies. Such an approach takes into account the fact that 'if you create something upstream of the river basin, it will have an impact downstream, and also vice-versa', he added. More deliberation needed The canyon where the Medog dam will be built is one of the deepest in the world, and plunges to depths of more than 5,000 metres. The river's fall over this canyon generates massive amounts of energy, making it an ideal site for a large hydropower plant. China has spent decades studying the site and drawing up plans for the dam's construction. Experts fear that if India now rushes to catch up with its neighbour, its own dam will not be built in the most optimal way. 'China has spent years studying the geomorphology and understanding the advantage of gradient that it has to build the dam there,' said Rahman. In this regard, India is '15-20 years behind China', Rahman said. At the moment, the government is attempting to conduct a survey, based on which it would draw up a 'pre-feasibility report' of the dam in Siang. This is only one of the first steps of the process, Rahman explained. 'You need to have a long-term research analysis in order to back up your structural interventions,' he said. This work would have helped India understand the area's hydrology more precisely, and identify potential sites for the dam. He further explained that such research could have helped minimise the likelihood of protests among local communities, since information about the project could have been communicated to people on the ground in a timely way. At present, he argued, sufficient hard data about the project has not been shared with local communities, which is leading to increased speculation among them. 'If India would have invested time and money in understanding the river basin in the last 20 years, India could have been in a much better position to design a dam that could perhaps counter the Medog dam,' Rahman said. No treaty India and China both feel a strong need to demonstrate ownership over the river in this region, experts noted, because there is no international law, transboundary institution, or treaty for the Brahmaputra basin that inscribes how its water should be shared. All the four countries that use the basin – China, Bhutan, India, and Bangladesh – have diverse interests, ranging from hydropower generation to flood management and economic development. But so far, discussions between them on cooperating over the river have been limited. In 1997, more than one hundred countries came together to adopt the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, which sets out a framework for countries that have to share waters. It mandates that signatories have to share hydrological, meteorological, hydrogeological and ecological data with each other, and that conflicts be resolved 'with special regard being given to the requirements of vital human needs'. But other than Bangladesh, none of the other countries in the Brahmaputra basin signed to be party to it. 'That made it very clear that India and China did not want to engage in a multilateral diplomatic negotiation where there could be a third-party mediation,' said Vij. 'It could have allowed for a more just, equal playing field for all actors, but the downside is that it would take longer time to negotiate between the countries.' Instead, India and China signed a memorandum of understanding in 2002 aimed at helping India take steps towards flood control and mitigate the risks of disasters. Under this memorandum, China would provide hydrological information of the river to India in both the flood and non-flood season. This memorandum was renewed in 2008 and 2013 – China temporarily paused it in 2017 after the two countries clashed in Doklam, and renewed it again in 2018. But the memorandum expired in June 2023 and has not been renewed since. In any case, Vij noted that as a mechanism, a memorandum of understanding 'can be a weak institutional mechanism for water-sharing'. Rahman added that while agreements act as 'bricks of confidence building', they are not as strongly backed by international law, and can be withdrawn more easily. In contrast, under international law, treaties are typically far more comprehensive, and carry more weight. Thus, they usually 'lead to cooperation and better understanding between the riparian states', said Vij. Indeed, though India and China signed the memorandum, the process of sharing data has been fraught, Vij wrote in a 2017 paper. Such sharing is typically a means of building trust between countries, but 'in the specific case of the Brahmaputra the lack of a data sharing procedure at the basin level has fostered mistrust between the riparian countries and hindered regional cooperation', he wrote. Further, he noted, 'The power asymmetry between the countries and the broader political context, which currently considers all hydrological data relating to international borders as classified, make the process of sharing data complex.' That has left the two countries in a race to create large infrastructure in the Himalaya, which can be disastrous not just to the topography, but also to local indigenous populations. 'In the way the dam construction is going on, it probably will not have an impact on what the Chinese are doing as much as it will have on their own population, people, nature and ecology,' said Vij.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
India steps up meets with China & Russia
NEW DELHI: Ahead of PM Narendra Modi 's visit to China for the SCO summit, India has intensified engagement with both China and Russia. As reported earlier, Chinese foreign minister and Special Representative (SR) for boundary talks Wang Yi will visit India next month and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar will travel to Moscow. India and China are expected to jointly announce Saturday Wang's visit on Aug 18. Jaishankar is scheduled to visit Moscow on August 21. Modi is likely to have bilateral meetings with Chinese and Russian Presidents, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin respectively, in Tianjin, the summit venue. Wang and NSA Ajit Doval are expected to hold the 24th round of SR talks for management of peace and tranquillity in border areas and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question. Doval had visited China in Dec last year for the last meeting between the SRs in which they underlined the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas to promote overall development of the India-China bilateral relationship. Wang is also likely to call on Modi during his visit. Wang is also expected to meet Jaishankar to discuss the agenda for Modi's bilateral with Xi on the margins of the SCO. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Play this game for 1 minute and see why everyone is addicted. Undo Jaishankar had last month visited Beijing for the SCO foreign ministers' meet and also held a bilateral meeting with Wang. He had raised issues related to terrorism, border management and also trade restrictions imposed by China. Jaishankar's visit to Moscow and his bilateral meeting with counterpart Sergey Lavrov will also be important for reviewing bilateral cooperation ahead of Modi's likely meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the SCO summit. Lavrov himself is expected to travel to India before the Russian President's big visit for the annual India-Russia summit towards the end of the year. This will be Putin's first visit to India since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in 2022.
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Really dumb people: Trump boils over John Bolton's ‘Putin has already won' remark
US President Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on his former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Wednesday. Trump called Bolton "dumb" and a "fired loser" after Bolton said that the planned meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska would be a "big win" for Moscow."Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, 'Putin has already won.' What's that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING," Trump wrote on Truth US president also lashed out at the media, saying they focus on corruption and ignore positive outcomes. "The Fake News is working overtime (No tax on overtime!). If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal! But now they've been caught," he wrote. "Look at all of the real news that's coming out about their CORRUPTION. They are sick and dishonest people, who probably hate our Country. But it doesn't matter because we are winning on everything!!! MAGA,' Trump CALLS ALASKA MEETING A 'WIN' FOR PUTINThe remarks came after John Bolton told Firstpost that Putin's meeting with Trump in Alaska would benefit the Russian leader. "It is a big win for Putin to come to the United States," Bolton has been a vocal critic of Trump's foreign policy -- including the US' tariffs on India - warning that such measures could push India closer to Moscow and imposed a 50 per cent tariff on India, pushing US-India trade tensions to a rare low in over two decades. The move primarily targets India's imports of Russian oil, which Washington claims is funding Russia's war in said the plan could backfire. "Trump's tariffs against India are intended to hurt Russia, but they could push India closer to Russia and to China to oppose these tariffs," he also stressed what he sees as inconsistencies in Trump's approach to China. "Trump's leniency on the Chinese, and heavy-handed tariffs on India, jeopardise decades of American efforts to bring India away from Russia and China," Bolton TO MEET PUTIN IN ALASKADonald Trump is set to discuss the war in Ukraine with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a military base in Alaska that was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the height of Cold War and still plays a role meeting is scheduled to take place Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, according to a White House official.- EndsWith inputs from agencies Tune InMust Watch
