India, China agree to expand military ties

NEW DELHI: India and China have agreed to expand their military ties and enhance interaction to ensure peace on their common border, India said after a meeting between the old rivals’ defence ministers.

Relations between the Asian giants were strained last year over a 73-day military face-off in a remote, high-altitude stretch of their disputed Himalayan border. But the neighbours have over recent months been working on mending ties and visiting Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week that their countries’ friendship dated back to ancient times.

On Thursday, Wei had extensive discussions with his Indian counterpart, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Indian government said. “It was decided to expand the engagement between their armed forces relating to training, joint exercises and other professional interactions,” the government said in a statement issued late on Thursday. The ministers also discussed their border and agreed to implement “confidence building measures” to ensure the maintenance of peace, including the early operationalisation of a hotline between their armed forces, India said. India and China fought a war in 1962 and the unresolved dispute over stretches of their 3,500 km (2,200 miles) border has clouded relations ever since. But the two big Asian economies share similar positions on a host of issues including concern about US tariffs and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Modi agreed in April to improve relations.

China wants to build houses and roads in Sri Lanka´s north, much of which is in a state of disrepair nearly a decade after the end of civil war, Chinese and Sri Lankan officials said, in a bid to expand it influence beyond the island´s south.

China´s latest push in the Indian Ocean island nation comes despite criticism that a big Chinese port project and related infrastructure in the south are dragging the country of 21 million people deep into debt. Luo Chong, chief of the political section at China´s embassy in Colombo, said China wanted to help with reconstruction in Sri Lanka´s north and east, the centre of a 26-year war between the government and ethnic minority Tamil separatists that ended in 2009.