China reacts cautiously to India's transgressions remark

Reacting guardedly to India's assertion of over 500 transgressions by Chinese troops along Line of Actual Control in the past two years, China on Friday said it is committed to implement agreements to ensure peace at borders, while the official media charged that Indian violations could be double than that.

"Chinese position on China and India boundary question is clear and consistent. China is always committed to (implement) bilateral agreements aimed at ensuring peace and stability at the border areas", Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media briefing in Beijing on Friday replying to a question.

He was reacting to Minister of State for Home Mullappally Ramachandran's statement in Rajya Sabha on March 16 that Chinese army has transgressed Sino-India border more than 500 times in the last two years.

While Hong preferred not go beyond China's commitment to implement bilateral agreements on border areas, Chinese official media in Beijing said Indian violations along LAC could be more than double than that has been alleged by India.

While reporting on Ramachandran's remarks, state-run Global Times quoted a strategic analyst Wang Dehua as saying "if Indian troops were held accountable for crossing into China's territory, the number of transgressions by Indian side could be more than double that during the same period".

He said China is "covering it up" because such assertions would not serve any purpose.

"Upholding the agreement by both sides not to aggravate the border tensions, China has been covering up this figure" because it does nothing to solve the boundary problems between China and India, Wang said.

He also said that Indian army was encouraged by the US to make some noise to distract China from the South China Sea, where it is in a spat with its sea neighbours such as the Philippines and Vietnam over the disputed islands.

"But India is neither on the US side nor on China's side, but has its own agenda," Wang said.

Besides holding 15 rounds talks to resolve the disputed boundary, India and China had also formed a new mechanism consisting of officials from the Ministry of Defence and foreign affairs to attend to problems relating to patrols by both sides of the disputed areas.