China said yesterday its “huge dispute” with India over Arunachal Pradesh is an “undeniable fact” even as it echoed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s views that the two countries should create favourable conditions for a mutually-acceptable settlement of the vexed boundary issue.
“There is a huge dispute in the eastern border of China-India border. This is undeniable fact,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said when asked about India’s decision to extend controversial the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Arunachal Pradesh.
“China always holds consistent and clear position on the China-India boundary question. The two sides should make joint efforts to maintain peace tranquility of the border area and create favourable conditions for the negotiation of the boundary question,” she said.
Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,126km border with China and 520km border with Myanmar. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet.
China calling the border issue a “huge dispute” and “undeniable fact” is seen as an attempt by Beijing to flag its stand on Arunachal Pradesh ahead of Modi’s expected visit to China next month.
The comments came as the top defence officials of the two countries are meeting in Beijing ahead of the Annual Defence Dialogue (ADD) scheduled for Friday.
Hua sounded positive while reacting to Modi’s remarks on the border issue made in an interview to an Indian newspaper and endorsed his views that maintaining peace at the border is important in order to create conditions to arrive at a mutually-acceptable solution.
