Beijing, Dec. 19: China appears to be making ground for claiming some 1,600 km of Indian territory judging by reports in the state-owned media on the length of Sino-Indian border.
Even as the two countries have been discussing the unresolved boundary issue for decades, the state-owned Xinhua and Global Times, an English language newspaper published by the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, have described the Sino-Indian border as nearly 2,000 km long.
The reports about the length of the border were carried in the Chinese official media ahead of the Prime Minister, Mr Wen Jiabao’s December 15-17 visit to India.
Xinhua, on the eve of Mr Wen’s arrival in New Delhi, had said the length of the border was nearly 2,000-km-long.
This Chinese assessment contradicts the Indian figure of 3,500 km for the operational border between the two nations.
The Indian position was made clear once again by the ambassador, Mr S. Jaishankar, during an interview with the Global Times.
When asked about the reported tensions in the border, Mr Jaishankar had said, “The reality contradicts any alarmist depiction of the situation on the border, whether in India or in China. We have a long common border of 3,488 km.”
The Global Times while publishing the interview on Tuesday surprisingly chose to add a footnote to its report to say that the Chinese government often refers to the border length as being “about 2,000 km”.
There was no immediate comment from the Indian embassy on the reports in the Chinese official media on the length of the Sino-Indian border.