On the eve of President Pranab Mukherjee's visit, China today struck a positive note saying that both the countries have been taking positive steps to manage the border dispute and that it is ready to "accelerate" talks to resolve the vexed issue "at an early date".
"China is ready to work with India to accelerate negotiations and resolve this historic issue at an early date to move forward bilateral relations," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, responding to Mukherjee's remark that India wants fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement to solve the border issue.
"We will extend warm welcome to President Mukherjee," on his first visit to China, Hua told reporters.
She said "China and India are committed to resolve territorial disputes through negotiations seeking a fair and reasonable settlement which is acceptable to all."
"In the past three decades and more the two sides have been taking positive steps to properly manage disputes and safeguard peace and tranquility of the border area creating favourable conditions for sound and sustainable development of bilateral ties," Hua said responding to a question on Mukherjee's comments to Chinese media on the issue.
Mukherjee, who arrives in the Chinese industrial city of Guangzhou on a four-day visit to China tomorrow, has told Chinese media that India seeks a "fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the (border) question."
He will reach Beijing on May 25 and is scheduled to hold talks with President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders.
Outlining the steps taken by India and China to resolve the dispute, Hua said so far the two countries have established a series of working mechanisms including talks at the level of Special Representatives to resolve the issue besides reaching political guidelines and three step road map.
The two sides held 19th Special Representative talks here last month. Both also reached political guidelines and three step road map, she said.
"China india emerging markets with increasing influence on the international stage. Both the countries are major force behind world peace and development. We are glad to see that in the past few years China and India have been moving forward on bilateral relations in a sound and stable way," she said.
Recalling Xi's 2014 visit to India which was followed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to China last year, she said bilateral ties have entered a period of fast development.
"We can take that President Mukherjee's visit this time to implement important outcomes during the previous visits of practical cooperation and forge close partnership for development," she said.
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Reporting on the talks, state-run Global Timessaid this is the first strategic dialogue after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government came to power in 2014.
Referring to the differences over the NSG and Azhar issues, the daily quoted Geng as saying in his recent briefings that the frictions between China and India "are not bilateral but multilateral".
Apart from the NSG issue, China and India still clash in other fields, including the understanding on counter-terrorism and free trade, Lin Minwang, an expert on South Asian studies and a professor at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, told the daily.
"India always wants to portray Pakistan as a 'supporter of terrorism' in the international community, which makes it easier for the country to link counter-terrorism issue to Sino-Pakistani relationship and blame China's support to Pakistan for some issues," Lin said, adding that India does not understand the significance of Sino-Pakistan friendship.
Additionally, trade is also a problem between both sides, he said.
"India's trade deficit with China is increasing since many of China's products meet the needs of the Indian market, such as small household appliances," Lin said.
India should understand that free trade is a dynamic process and China has also suffered from huge trade deficits with other countries at the beginning of its reform and opening-up, Lin said.
