Days after defending its Doklam construction as legitimate, the Chinese foreign ministry on Monday said that India and China should look at the border differences between the countries in a "calm way" and should attempt to resolve them through existing mechanisms. "I should say the two sides should look at border issues in a calm way and resolve relevant issues through the existing border-related mechanisms so that we can create conditions and enabling environment to properly solve our differences," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said. Talking about the satellite imagery that shows construction in Doklam area, Hua referred to the 1890 treaty between UK and China and said, "the Sikkim section of the China-India boundary has been demarcated by historic treaty and treaty under effective jurisdiction of China". "I should stress it (area) falls within China's sovereignty that we conduct facility building in Donglang area. China has always upheld our sovereignty along the border area including (Doklam) Donglang," she added. Referring to the recent media reports citing imagery of a Chinese military complex in the area, she said, "Some Indian media have carried reports about the military buildup and infrastructure building in the area. They are very excited about it." Justifying the construction, the ministry had earlier said that China was exercising sovereignty in its own territory and is building infrastructure for its troops and the people living in the border areas. Both the countries were locked in a standoff for over two months in the Doklam area near Sikkim, before “disengaging” on August 28 Reacting to the comments made by Indian Ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale in an interview to Global Times, a Chinese daily, where he said that India and China are partners and not rivals, the ministry said, "the Chinese government's position remains consistent". Adding that both the neighbours should treat each other as an opportunity for development, she said, "It is also a consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries. We will surely treat India as our cooperation partner and we hope to enhance people-to-people ties and friendship through such communication exchanges and to enhance our mutual trust so that we can lay more solid foundation and public support for our bilateral relations. In this, we can create better conditions to resolve our differences." The ministry also talked about the local commanders' meeting held on the occasion of Republic Day during which they exchanged pleasantries. "We think this is conducive to enhance mutual trust and upholding peace stability along the border areas. We are also willing to enhance our communication and cooperation to better safeguard the security there and to create a better environment in this regard," Hua said. (With inputs from PTI)
