In a historical move, an Indian Army team crossed the border to
visit a Chinese town in Tibet to mark China's 55th National Day.
During the two-hour stay on October 1, the Indian soldiers were
entertained by Chinese cultural troupes with songs and dances.
Following some consultation, 50 Indian troops, some with their
family members, traveled to the remote outpost on southwest China's
Himalayan border with India's Arunachal Pradesh state.
On his return, the Indian officer leading the troops, Brigadier
Vikram Raghavan told reporters: "We want to be friends and even the
Chinese side shares such a strong feeling.”
Exorcising the ghost of the 1962 border war, the delegation of
50 army men and their families, besides journalists, made its way
from Arunachal Pradesh to the Chinese town of Bumla, for two hours
of festivities.
The border near Bumla is divided by heaps of stones.
The visit by the Indian delegation follows a similar gesture
shown by the People's Liberation Army of China who attended India's
Independence Day celebrations on Aug 15 at the Bumla Pass Indian
border post.
About 50 Chinese military officials and soldiers, also with
their families, had traveled to the Bumla Pass, close to the
Chinese outpost, for Indian Independence Day on 15 August.
"This was a kind of a return visit," said Brigadier Raghavan, "a
reciprocal gesture and one that's part of our confidence-building
process along the Line of Actual Control.”
"I can say the winds of change are blowing across the Himalayas
and we want to be friends."
Neither Chinese nor Indian troops here are talking of
hostilities any more.
"Our relations are improving and there is no question of a war,"
said PLA Senior Colonel Chen Yen Hui as he supervised the
celebrations at Nagdoh. "China and India will be friends
forever."
Brigadier Raghavan said: "Since we started these
confidence-building exercises and these reciprocal visits, tensions
have eased on what once was a very sensitive frontier.
"Violation of each other's territory, incursions by patrols have
come down sharply. We have little to complain about each other
these days."
He said it was "particularly significant" that the Chinese had
allowed the Indian media to visit their remote outpost.
Bilaterial relations improved greatly after former Indian Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's six-day trip to China in June last
year. The two countries decided to sort out their 40-year border
dispute by appointing senior officials to tackle the matter. This
year, China finally accepted the Himalayan state of Sikkim as part
of India.
It is yet to accept Arunachal Pradesh as part of India but
analysts say the joint celebrations are a significant move.
(China Daily, October 3, 2004)