A Chinese envoy was due to hold talks in India from yesterday aimed at fixing a dispute about the Himalayan border that divides Asia’s largest nations — part of a push to make progress on the festering row before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits China.
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) is visiting India from yesterday through tomorrow for the 18th round of boundary talks, India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The talks are the first since Modi took office. The nationalist prime minister is keen to resolve the dispute that has clouded rapidly expanding commercial links, and any progress would shed a positive light on his expected visit to Beijing in May.
However, there is no simple solution to a conflict that largely dates back to British colonial decisions about Tibet.
The disagreement over the 3,500km border led to a brief war in 1962 and involves large swathes of remote territory.
China lays claim to more than 90,000 square kilometers disputed by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas. Much of that forms the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls South Tibet.
India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometers of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.
In September last year, the two armies were locked in a face-off in the Ladakh sector in the western Himalayas, just as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was visiting India for the first summit talks with Modi.
Yang’s visit to India is at the invitation of Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Modi’s close aide, who is known to take a hard line on security issues.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not