Long view urged on Sino-Indian border situation

State Councilor and Defense Minister Li Shangfu called for joint efforts to bring the China-India border situation "under regular control at an early date", as he met with India's defense minister, Rajnath Singh, on Thursday in New Delhi.

The meeting, held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Defense Ministers' Meeting, was the first between Chinese and Indian defense ministers since a meeting in Moscow in 2020.

According to a news release on Friday by China's Ministry of National Defense, the two defense ministers exchanged views on relations between the two countries and militaries.

Li said that China and India, as major neighboring countries and important developing countries, share far more common interests than differences.

He stressed that both sides should view bilateral relations and each other's development from a "comprehensive, long-term and strategic" perspective.

Li also said that the current China-India border situation is generally stable, and the two sides have maintained communications through military and diplomatic channels.

He called for both sides to put the boundary issue in its "proper place" in bilateral relations. He expressed the hope that the two sides would work together to continuously enhance mutual trust between the two militaries and make due contributions to the development of bilateral relations.

Liu Lin, a researcher at the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Science, said the defense ministers' meeting was very important for both sides to enhance the management of the border dispute.

"The 'proper place' mentioned by Li signals that China hopes both sides can work together to properly manage differences in border issues, and prevent the dispute from being a major obstacle affecting the whole picture of China-India ties," she said.

"Regular control" of the situation could be the right direction, and that would demand a viable settlement of current border tension, which could be reached through dialogue and negotiations between the two countries, Liu said.

On Sunday, the Chinese and Indian militaries conducted their 18th round of corps commander-level talks at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point on the Chinese side.

Both sides agreed to maintain close contact to accelerate the resolution of border issues between the two countries, according to an earlier statement from China's Defense Ministry.

Liu said that China and India — the world's two largest developing countries — can conduct cooperation in various fields, such as economy and trade, people-to-people exchanges and sustainable development.

"Therefore, India should not view China only from the perspective of geopolitics, but also cooperation and development," she said.