India, China need new thinking to resolve border issue: Experts

BEIJING: With India and China wrapping up the 14th round of boundary talks without much tangible progress, some Chinese experts feel that both sides need to adopt a "new thinking" matched with political will to make compromises in order to resolve the issue.

The talks, which took place ahead of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India later this month, were very important but the two countries required new thinking without which the issue cannot be resolved, former Chinese Ambassador to India Cheng Ruisheng said.

"I think both sides need some kind of new thinking, so that they can find out a kind of compromise, if they can find that, this will be a major breakthrough for the final settlement," he told the state-run CCTV.

Cheng, a firm advocate of a compromise for many years, did not specify the nature of compromise but his general stand had been that there should be meaningful re-adjustments acceptable to both sides.

According to him, the leaders of both nations should work to take a historic decision to find out a middle way.

The two countries share over 4000 km-long border and the dispute confined to Aksai Chin in Ladakh region and Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as southern Tibet.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, who concluded his talks with his Chinese counterpart Dai Bingguo here yesterday, said that steady progress was being made with discussions focussed on working out a framework to resolve the issue, but final decision had to be taken by the political leaderships of both countries.

Though India-China began discussions to resolve the border differences in 1980, the process got an impetus after the two countries agreed to hold talks through designated Special Representatives.

The two countries also signed agreements in 1993 and 1996 to maintain peace and stability in the border areas besides inking a political guiding principle on demarcation of the boundary in 2005.

While Cheng advocates compromise and new thinking, some other prominent academics say that considering complexities involved in resolving the border issue, the two countries should shelve it and focus on other aspects of the relationship.