China has denied any of its armed personnel were posted in Pakistani Kashmir, stating that these were "just stories".
A senior leader in charge of bilateral relations with India and Pakistan said that with modern technology and satellites no troops could remain undetected anywhere.
"Even 5,000 ants cannot hide from being seeing," Deputy Diretor-General of Department of Asian Affairs at the foreign minister, Huang Xilian said here.
Xilian recently return from Kathmandu after attending the conference on reconstruction with China's foreign minister. India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was also there. The two ministers met at the sidelines of the donor conference.
The DDG, who was meeting visiting Indian journalists and those based in Beijing, said that any mention of armed forces in the region (Pakistani Kashmir) "was groundless". India had "very good spy satellites", so where could the troops hide, he asked. "Show us the evidence," he added.
He was responding to a question about comments made by senior army personnel in India on the presence of Chinese troops in the disputed area. He said perhaps the construction workers in uniform were "mistaken" for Chinese armed men. He said China always hoped that such comments were made only "after checking facts".
Responding to another question, Xilian said that China was aware of the concern shown by India on construction activities in the region. "But these are only commercial ventures" which had been going on for years. "There's nothing new there," he said. The government of China had no activity of military or other kind in the region.
(Hardev Sanotra is in China at the invitation of the All China Journalists' Association. He can be contacted at hardev.sanotra@ians.in)
