By IANS,
New Delhi : A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh downplayed reports of increasing Chinese incursions, top Indian officials and the army chief Saturday warned that media “hype” could lead to “unwarranted incident or accident” with Beijing and stressed that the two countries are trying to resolve bilateral issues through dialogue.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said there was no plan for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of G-20 Summit in the US next week.
Rao also stressed that there was “no significant increase” in incursions across all sections of the over 4,000 km border between the two countries.
“There is no meeting that has been planned between Singh and the leader of the Chinese delegation to the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh,” Rao told reporters here when asked if Manmohan Singh will take up the issue of incursions with Hu.
“Contrary to popular perception, the situation along the border has remained peaceful for decades,” she said. “That’s because there is no mutually agreed or delineated border. This is not a new phenomenon. It has been going on for years.”
Rao also repudiated a media report that said China had succeeded in blocking a development loan for India in the Asian Development Bank on the ground that a part of it was meant for Arunachal Pradesh, which is claimed by Beijing. “Country partnership strategy has already been endorsed by ADB,” Rao said.
National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor also cautioned against ‘media hype’ and stressed that there was nothing alarming about reported incursions.
“There has not been any more incursions or transgressions. As compared to last year, they are almost at the same level. So there is no cause for worry or concern. I request the media to restrain and not overplay,” Gen. Kapoor told reporters in Chennai.
Narayanan Saturday stoutly maintained there would never be a “repeat” of the 1962 war with China and warned that media hype could lead to “unwarranted incident or accident” and that could create problems with the neighbour.
“The first thing, I would like to sort of wipe out the question of repeat of 1962. India of 2009 isn’t… India of 1962. I want to make this point very clearly,” Narayanan told the news channel CNN-IBN in an interview.
“We are careful. I think we are careful partly because of what happened in 1962 that we should not provoke a situation, which we don’t wish to have. I don’t think anybody in India wishes to have a conflict with China,” said Narayanan, who is also India’s special representative for border talks with China.
“I think that also goes for China. There are issues between the two countries. I don’t think we have all the answers for these issues. But the whole purpose of dialogue is to see where are the congruencies and the differences.”
“In terms of number of incursions, there has been hardly any increase. Occasionally inroads are a little deeper than what might have been in the past. I don’t think there is anything alarming about it,” said Narayanan.
Rao too brushed off the alarming reprots in the Indian media of Chinese intrusions. “There has been a hype and a certain intensification of volume about the manner in which it has been reported.”
Rao said there are established mechanisms like border personnel meetings to address issues relating to intrusions and stressed that they have “worked well”.
India and China have held 13 rounds of talks to resolve the border row albeit with little progress as both sides have reiterated their stated positions.
Underlining the developing nature of relationship between India and China, Rao, a former ambassador to China, said the leadership of the two countries are in regular communication over important bilateral issues.
“We remain in constant touch over all mutual issues. The leadership-level understandings and communication remain open all the time,” she said.
“There is regular communication and a mutual recognition that outstanding issues can be resolved through dialogue and communication between two nations as large as ours with international responsibilities,” she said.