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China Raises Five-Point Proposal for Relations with India
China has raised a five-point proposal for enhancing bilateral relations with India, which covers areas like border issue, economic cooperation, military relations and security dialogue between the two countries, visiting Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said in New Dehli on Saturday.
Tang, who arrived here on Friday evening on a one-day official visit to India, held more than two hours of talks with his Indian counterpart External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh here on Saturday morning.
Meeting the press following their talks, both Tang and Singh described their discussions as "friendly, fruitful and constructive". Tang added that the five-point proposal he brought to New Delhi had been supported and agreed to by his Indian counterpart.
The Indian side attached great importance to and warmly welcomed Tang's visit, his first as Chinese foreign minister and the most senior level visit to India by Chinese officials since New Delhi conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, Singh noted.
On the border issue about which the Indian side has shown great concern, Tang said that China has made "positive proposals" on this issue, adding that the Chinese side believes that focus should be laid on accelerating the process of the checking and clarification of the middle sector of the Line of Actual Control ( LAC).
The joint working group on the border issue between the two countries should also try to raise its efficiency and accelerate its work process, he added.
The Chinese foreign minister said that during the recent state visit to China by Indian President K R Narayanan, leaders of both countries have set the tone and worked out the framework for the future development of Sino-Indian relations.
"We sincerely hope that in the new century China and India can achieve a neighborly-friendly, lasting and stable cooperative partnership in a real sense," Tang said.
In response to a question about China's military cooperation with Pakistan, Tang said that the Sino-Pakistani military cooperation was a normal military cooperation based on normal state-to-state relations, and was not directed against any third party or country.
He also categorically denied allegations of China's nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, stating that as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a signatory of the Non- Proliferation Treaty, China has always taken a "strict, serious and responsible" attitude toward the nuclear issue.
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