China and India signed a deal on Wednesday aimed at soothing tension on their contested border, as the two nuclear-armed giants try to break a decades-old stalemate on overlapping claims to long remote stretches of the Himalayas.
The agreement was signed in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People following a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
China, a close ally of India’s long-time foe, Pakistan, lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) disputed by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (14,600 square miles) of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.
The two countries fought a brief border war in 1962 and since then ties have been mired in distrust, with a series of alleged violations by Chinese military patrols earlier this year.
“I am sure it will help to maintain peace, tranquillity and stability in our border areas,” China’s Li told reporters following talks with Singh.
The border defence cooperation agreement is built on existing confidence-building measures and is designed to ensure that patrolling along the Line of Actual Control, as the unsettled border is called, does not escalate into an unintended skirmish, an Indian official said last week.
Singh said the agreement “will add to the existing instruments to ensure peace, stability and predictability on our borders”.
Under the new deal, the two sides will give notice of patrols along the ill-defined border to ensure that patrols do not “tail” each other to reduce the chance of confrontation and will exercise “maximum self-restraint” should the two sides come face to face in areas where the line of control is unclear.
