China policy paper upbeat about ties with India
13 Jan 2017
In its latest policy document on Asia-Pacific security, China had presented an upbeat picture of its ties with India, referring to a deepening partnership, but was silent on contentious issues such as India's NSG bid and efforts to get JeM chief Masood Azhar banned by the UN, PTI reported.
A white paper titled "China's Policies on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation", released on Wednesday, said China and India made "new progress" in bilateral exchanges amid divergence in ties over China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor as also India's growing strategic partnership with Vietnam.
Further, in an interesting reference to counter-terrorism, the document without naming Pakistan, noted, "China believes that dialogue among different civilizations should be enhanced and a holistic approach taken to eliminate the breeding grounds of terrorism by addressing both its symptoms and root causes by political, economic and diplomatic means.
At the same time, there should be no double standard in fighting terrorism, which should not be associated with any particular country, ethnicity or religion."
The report said eight rounds of defence and security consultation and six joint military anti-terrorism training exercises have been held so far. ''Sound cooperation in personnel training, professional exchanges and other fields is being carried out,'' the policy document stated.
''The two sides have also conducted border defence cooperation which plays a positive role in maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas between China and India,'' the white paper said.
It added that military officials of the two sides had visited each other in 2015 and 2016, and ''reached an important consensus on strengthening pragmatic cooperation between the two militaries and working together to maintain peace and stability in the border areas,'' it said.
The paper went on to detail the status of relations with the US, Russia, Japan and South Korea and on the Asia Pacific security situation, it said the situation was stable on the whole, with a strong momentum for peace and development.
