China verifying India's claim of airspace violations

China on Thursday said it is verifying Indian Defence Minister A K Antony's allegations that the Chinese helicopters violated Indian airspace twice last month and reiterated its stand to resolve the border dispute with India through negotiations.

"I have seen relevant press reports. We still need to verify relevant information", Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Weimin told media briefing in Beijing on Thursday.

He was replying to a question about Antony's statement on Wednesday that Chinese helicopter's violated Indian airspace on March 16 and 19 in the Hamachal Pradesh border.

Liu said China's stand on India-China border issue has been consistent and clear.

"We will continue to resolve the border issues through negotiations and consultations. Pending resolution we hope the two sides continue to uphold peace and stability of the border areas", he said.

Mentioning the Chinese airspace violations in his statement to the Parliament, Antony said "Incidents of transgressions or intrusions are taken up with the Chinese side through established mechanisms such as hot lines, flag meetings, border personnel meetings and normal diplomatic channels," and added that these mechanisms facilitate maintenance of peace.

The air violations may the first border incidents that took place after formation of the new border mechanism established by the two countries early this year.

The first meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs had held its first meeting here on March 6 to frame mutually-agreed rules.

The border mechanism was formed to avoid any untoward incidents between the troops on ground while patrolling the various points.

India and China have held 15 rounds of talks by special representatives to resolve differences over demarcation of the borders.

India asserts that the dispute covered about 4000 km, while China claims that it confined to around 2000 km of the area along Arunachal Pradesh, which it refers as Southern Tibet.

Meanwhile, a Chinese strategic analyst termed the Indian allegations of airspace violations as groundless.

"The Chinese government has always been very restrained in dealing with boundary issues with India and China has been seeking a fair and reasonable solution acceptable to both sides," Wang Dehua, a scholar on South Asian issues at the Shanghai Institute of International Strategic Studies, told the state-run Global Times.

Wang said one major reason for such accusations is that New Delhi wants to make up more excuses for its expanding military capabilities by playing up China's threat referring to the recent test firing of long range Agni V missile which could reach all most all top cities of China.