China wants to “advance” boundary negotiations with India
04 Mar 2011
China made some soothing noises when queried about a massive hike in its defence expenditure by saying it would like to ''advance'' negotiations with India on resolving a long-pending boundary issue. It referred to what it called was a prevailing ''good atmosphere'' as a good harbinger for talks.
The comments were made ahead of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) and discussions of the 12th Five Year Plan.
According to a national spokesperson, the Special Representative mechanism created by both India and China to resolve the boundary issue had brought about ''some momentum'' in resolving the problem.
Talking to the media, Li Zhaoxing, spokesman for the annual session of China's national legislature, said, ''We seek to advance the negotiation process on the settlement framework so as to resolve this boundary question which has been created and left by history as soon as possible.''
Li, a former foreign minister, was responding to a question that the double-digit hike in its defence budget outlay may cause concern in India and other neighbouring nations.
The NPC begins its annual session from tomorrow and will consider the draft of the new defence budget as well as the 12th five-year plan.
''At represent there are friendly and stable relations between China and India. This has created a good atmosphere for the two sides to resolve the boundary question through consultations,'' Li said.
Li defended the defence budget hike saying that India too had increased its defence expenditure and in GDP terms it was more than that of China's.
''It is true that China's defence budget is raised a bit, but the ratio of the defence spending in the country's GDP remains very low, much lower than those of many other countries,'' he told a press conference for the annual parliamentary session.
While China's military spending amounts to about 1.4 per cent of its GDP, ''that ratio in India is much higher than two per cent as far as I know,'' he said.
He parroted the usual line about China's defence policy being defensive in character.