India and China to hold border talks

INDIA announced yesterday (20) it would host China for another round of talks on long-running border disputes, the first since they defused one of their worst deadlocks in decades.

The foreign ministry said China's special representative on borders would meet his counterpart in New Delhi tomorrow (22) for the 20th meeting on the unresolved "boundary question".

The regional giants have been arguing over their border since the 1960s when they went to war over Arunachal Pradesh state in east India.

Special representatives from both sides have been holding regular talks since 2003, but disputes remain.

This week's meeting on borders is the first since India and China resolved a summer standoff in a different Himalayan region.

The area known as the Doklam plateau, or Donglang in Chinese, is claimed by both China and by Bhutan, which is an ally of India.

The dispute began in mid-June after Chinese troops started building a road on the plateau, and India deployed troops to stop the project.

The confrontation escalated until August when the two nuclear-armed nations pulled back their troops, averting a full-blown crisis.

"In 2017, China-India relations have maintained a good momentum generally but the Doklam incident posed a major test for the two countries. We should learn lessons from this incident to avoid any further conflict of this kind in the future," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.

India and China have a long history of mistrust as they jostle for regional supremacy.

Both nations say they are committed to solving longstanding border disagreements through dialogue, but progress has been glacial.

India and China went to war in 1962 over Arunachal Pradesh, with Chinese troops temporarily capturing part of the Himalayan territory.

The dispute remains unresolved, with India considering Arunachal Pradesh one of its northeastern states while China stakes claims to about 90,000 square kilometres of the state.