India, China to hold 15th bilateral round of talks

India and China will hold the 15th bilateral round of talks in this capital with an agenda to address border claims, visas, cooperation and improve current bilateral trade from $60 billion to $100 billion by 2015.

The mid-month talks between India's National Security Advisor, Shankar Menon, and China's State Councillor, Dai Bingguo, will try and draw an acceptable common border mapping, diplomatic sources told local media.

However, China cancelled the November 2011 talks to protest the Buddhist conference in India with the Dalai Lama as the keynote speaker, but considering the sensitivity of the territorial differences, the parties decided to resume top-level exchange.

Menon and Dai are to arrange direct means to report border intrusion and other issues hurting their relations lately, like the visa denial to an Air Force officer in a visiting mission who was born in Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India, a territory China claims.

Two Indian businessmen were recently detained in Yiwu, China, and were only freed at New Delhi's request, since Beijing outlined as its foreign policy priority for 2012 building confidence with India, keeping top level exchange, expanding bilateral cooperation and relations in different fields.

Both nations share 4,500-km mountain border, a focus of several diplomatic and military clashes, with the 1962 war in the Himalayas as the most serious since the litigation is on for a 90,000-km area of Arunachal Pradesh, now among India's 28 states that China calls South Tibet.