Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
March 23, 2015
NSA Ajit Doval with Chinese Special Representative Yang Jiechi in New Delhi on Monday. Tribune Photo.Mukesh Aggarwal
Even as India and China today held the 18th round of talks on resolving their long-pending boundary issue, troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China have been “active” for the past two days in the area where the Subhansiri river enters Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet. The river originates in Tibet and flows into the Indian North-Eastern states before joining the Brahmaputra in Lakhimpur, Assam.
The Chinese PLA’s troops made a visit to the disputed section of the boundary, top sources confirmed today, saying “there has been some activity that has been noticed. So far, it is not an intrusion”. The Macmohan Line (the de facto boundary between the two countries) is not demarcated on the ground. The British had drawn the Macmohan line in 1914. China has disputed its alignment and claims large parts of Arunachal Pradesh as its own. Troops of both sides patrol the disputed areas.
Special Representative (SR) on the Boundary Question and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval held talks with his Chinese counterpart and State Councillor Yang Jiechi in New Delhi today. The two officials have met for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2014 told Chinese President Xi Jinping during their New Delhi summit that “a clarification on the LAC (Line of Actual Control) is very important. It has been pending for years. It is time to start it again”.
