New Delhi/Beijing: Terming India’s act of stopping Chinese troops from constructing a road in an area near Sikkim as a “betrayal”, China on Monday said India must pull back its soldiers from the area.
Reacting to Indian defence minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that India of 2017 is different from what it was in 1962, the spokesperson said, “He (Arun Jaitley) is right in saying that India in 2017 is different from 1962, just like China is also different.”
China, he added, will take “all necessary measures” to safeguard its territorial sovereignty.
Mr Jaitley was reacting to a Chinese defense ministry official’s oblique reference to the 1962 war when he said that the “Indian Army could learn lessons from the past and stop such dangerous clamour for war”.
The Chinese media, meanwhile, has said that India’s objection to China building a road in Sikkim ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US was aimed at demonstrating to Washington its “firm determination” to “constrain” China’s rise.
New Delhi’s position has consistently been that while the status of Sikkim as a part of India has been accepted by the Chinese, the boundary in the Sikkim sector with China is yet to be finalised.
“Where the boundary in the Sikkim sector is concerned, India and China had reached an understanding, also in 2012, reconfirming their mutual agreement on the ‘basis of the alignment,” external affairs ministry had said.
