Border Along Pangong as per LAC, No Expansion: Chinese Ambassador

‘China upholds its sovereignty & meanwhile will never engage in aggression or expansion,” ambassador Weidong claimed

The inscriptions fall between finger 4 & 5 of the disputed area near Ladakh’s Pangong Tso.

(Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia/KennyOMG)

Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, on Thursday, 30 July, reportedly claimed that there had been no such thing as China expanding its territorial claim along the northern side of Pangong Lake, and that the “traditional customary boundary line is in accordance with the LAC.”

Speaking at a webinar organised by the Institute of Chinese Studies on ‘China-India Relations: The Way Forward’, the ambassador reportedly claimed that any one side “unilaterally delimiting” the LAC during negotiations would lead to disputes and would be “a departure from the original purpose of clarifying the LAC.”

Taking to Twitter, Weidong further said that China safeguarded its “national sovereignty, security and development interests” and has never “been aggressive & pursued own development at expense of other countries.”

‘China’s Policy Towards India Remains Unchanged’

In a series of tweets, the Chinese ambassador said that the “general structure that we can't live without each other remains unchanged.”

“Our basic judgment is 3 unchanged: basic national conditions as two largest developing neighbors remain unchanged. Orientation of being partners, friendly cooperation & common development remain unchanged (sic),” he tweeted.

He added that both sides should grasp the “fundamental interests” of the two countries and its people, and stick to friendly cooperation to bring bilateral relations back to normal.

The Ambassador sought to clarify that China was committed to peaceful development and that it was not a “strategic threat” to India. He also said that safeguarding world peace and promoting common development had always been the “fundamental goal of China’s diplomacy”.

“Invisible virus rather than China is the threat. It is short-sighted & harmful to deny long history of peaceful co-existence between China and India & portray our friendly neighbor for thousands of years as opponent & strategic threat due to temporary differences & difficulties,” he tweeted.

‘Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Xizang are China’s Internal Affairs’

Stressing that while China doesn’t interfere in the internal affairs of any other country, he added that matters related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Xizang, were China’s internal matters and bear on its sovereignty and security.

He also added that “forced decoupling” would only lead to a “lose-lose outcome” as the economies of the two countries were “highly complementary, interwoven & interdependent.”

“Our economic and trade exchanges should be positive cycle of mutual accomplishment. It should not become a knockout nor a zero-sum game deliberately suppressing others. We should recognize mutually beneficial and win-win nature and jointly create open, fair, just business environment.”

Sun Weidong

He added that bilateral relations between the two countries were “hard-earned and should be cherished” with relations being handled carefully. and cautiously, avoiding a “whirlpool of suspicion and confrontation.”