ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Let's be friends, China tells India

Promoting good relations with neighbours through confidence-building measures like troop reduction on borders is right on top of the Chinese agenda, Beijing has endorsed.

This reiteration is contained in the 'White paper on China's national defence.' It assumes additional significance in the Indian context as it comes after the Pokhran nuclear tests.

''China places great stress on promoting co-operation in CBMs, considering the establishment of mutual trust between nations as an effective way to maintain security,'' the white paper says.

In November 1996, China and India had signed an agreement on CBMs in the military field along the Line of Actual Control between their borders.

The text of the white paper, released by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, has been reproduced by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in the latest issue of its publication Strategic Digest.

The paper notes that China has in recent years reached agreements with neighbours on confidence-building measures and reduction of military forces in border areas. It says that these agreements reflect the new kind of security concept that it vigorously advocates, and embodies the spirit of the Asia-Pacific security dialogues and co-operation.

Elaborating, the white paper identifies some of the new concepts as mutual and equal security, and seeking security by establishing mutual trust, dialogue and co-operation without interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and without aiming at a third party.

The paper also identifies preventing military forces from threatening or harming other countries' security and stability, implementing and sticking to a national defence policy that is defensive in nature, adopting suitable CBMs in border and disputed areas on a bilateral basis, and engaging in friendly contacts between military forces.

It notes that the November 1996 agreement on CBMs with India provides that both should not engage in military activities that undermine peace, tranquillity and stability in border areas, that both should strictly respect and observe the LOAC.

The agreement on CBMs with India also says that the two should limit the size of field army, border defence forces, paramilitary forces and any other mutually agreed category of armed forces and armaments deployed along the LOAC, should refrain from staging military exercises in border areas, should restrict the scale of military exercises and provide prior notification to the other with regard to military exercises of certain scale along the LOAC, the paper notes.

Further, it holds that the agreement on CBMs is against air intrusions.

The paper also takes note of China's agreements with Russia, the United States, and some other Central Asian republics.

''Facts show that China is a responsible, big country and a firm force safeguarding world peace and stability,'' the forward of the paper says.

The paper then proceeds to take stock of the international security situation. At present, armed conflicts and local wars, touched off by disputes about territory, natural resources, ethnicity or religion, were relatively limited in terms of scale, intensity and region, and were under control to varying degrees, it says.

To obtain lasting peace, it was imperative to abandon the cold war mentality, cultivate a new concept of security, and seek a new way to safeguard peace, it adds.

The paper maintains that China is opposed to arms race, and that effective control and disarmament should be carried out in accordance with the principles of 'fairness, rationality, comprehensiveness and balance'.

On the issue of nuclear weapons, it says as the international situation is tending to relax and relations between the major powers are improving, the conditions were now ripe for nuclear states to enter into not-to-be-the-first-to-use agreements.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report