Sino-India border situation generally stable: Top Chinese military general Fan Changlong

BEIJING: The Sino-India border situation is generally stable, a top Chinese general has said and hoped that the two sides would properly handle their disputes and improve the communication mechanism to safeguard peace and stability in the border areas.

General Fan Changlong, Vice Chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) who made a rare visit to India this week, during his meeting with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar yesterday in Delhi said that China opposes all forms of terrorism and is ready to work with the international community to fight it.

CMC headed by President Xi Jinping is the highest body controlling the 1.2 million-strong Chinese military, the world's largest army.

Fan said in about one year's time, Chinese President Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have met several times, and the two leaders have reached consensus to build a tighter partnership for development to push the bilateral relations to a new stage.

Apparently referring to stand-offs over incursions by Chinese troops at the disputed border, he stressed that at present, the China-India border situation is generally stable and the two militaries should take concrete actions to implement the consensus reached by the two leaders on border issues.

Both sides should properly handle the differences, strengthen border cooperation at all levels and improve the communication mechanism to jointly safeguard peace and stability in border areas.

He said that the Sino-Indian relations are showing good momentum of development and the two countries are carrying out pragmatic cooperation with good results, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Fan said China attaches great importance to developing ties with India and the Chinese military is willing to cooperate with its Indian counterpart to actively implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries to build a comprehensive exchange mechanism, expand cooperation in specific fields, and enrich the contents and meaning of the strategic cooperative partnership between the two sides.

In his meeting with the Army Chief General Dalbir Singh, Fan said as an important part of bilateral relations the two armed forces have conducted sound cooperation in delegation visits, exchange between military academies and institutions, joint training exercises and other fields, China military online reported.

Fan is the highest ranking military official to have visited India for about a decade. He visited Pakistan, China's all weather-ally before arriving in India.