SOURCE: LIVE MINT
Indian ambassador Vikram Misri on Friday met a senior member of China’s Central Military Commission and discussed India’s position on the current stand-off with Beijing at the border.
“Ambassador @VikramMisri today met Major General Ci Guowei, Director of the Office of International Military Cooperation of the Central Military Commission and briefed him on India’s stance vis-à-vis the situation on the borders in eastern Ladakh UT,” said a Twitter post by the Indian embassy in Beijing.
This is the second meeting of Misri with senior officials in the Chinese establishment. On Wednesday, he had met Liu Jianchao, deputy director of the office of the CPC Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission and discussed the tensions between the two countries along the Line of Actual Control border. Liu is considered as close to Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a person familiar with the development.
Analysts like Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese Studies at the New Delhi based Jawaharlal Nehru University, say that the meetings that Misri has been having are “good to put across the Indian point of view” but a breakthrough cannot be expected unless the Chinese leadership at the top gives such a signal.
The meeting comes after five rounds of talks at the level of senior commanders and three rounds of talks between diplomats have not yet been able to find a solution to the tensions between the two countries that spiked in May after multiple intrusions by Chinese troops in Ladakh.
Tensions were exacerbated by the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops in a violent clash in Galwan valley on 15 June. These were the first casualties in 45 years.
India has said that peace and tranquility on the border is the “basis of our bilateral relationship.”
“Therefore, we expect that the Chinese side will sincerely work with us for complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas at the earliest,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said.
Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong on Wednesday reiterated that the onus for the Galwan valley incident is “not on China.”
In a Chinese embassy magazine China-India Review published in New Delhi, Sun has written, “If one analyses this incident carefully, it’s quite clear that the onus is not on China. The Indian side crossed the LAC for provocation and attacked the Chinese border troops. The Indian forces seriously violated agreements on border issues between the two countries and severely violated basic norms governing international relations.”
“We urge the Indian side to conduct a thorough investigation, hold the violators accountable, strictly discipline the frontline troops, and immediately stop all provocative acts to ensure such incidents will not occur again,” Sun stated.
