CHINA: India and China have said they have appointed envoys to map out a resolution of a long-running border dispute, highlighting a new effort by the world's two biggest nations to resolve their differences.
The one-time rivals had agreed "to explore from the political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship the framework of a boundary settlement", a joint declaration said after the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, met Chinese leaders in Beijing yesterday.
After talks with former president Jiang Zemin, who commands China's vast military, Mr Vajpayee said: "Our present course of developing all-round bilateral co- operation while simultaneously addressing our differences has transformed the quality of our relationship."
The countries also agreed to trade at two points along their rugged Himalayan border, one in Tibet and one in Sikkim, the tiny Himalayan state annexed by New Delhi in 1975 and which Beijing has never accepted as a part of India.
Nuclear-armed China and India fought a brief border war in 1962 and, despite a thaw in relations and years of talks, have failed to pin down exactly where their 3,500 km border lies.
Mr Vajpayee declared the era of mutual suspicion dead yesterday, although it was clear that remaining disputes were tricky.
The official China Daily said ties had entered a new phase after India explicitly recognised Tibet as part of China in the declaration. However, the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, said there was no question of a change in the Indian position.
"What we have said on Tibet is consistent with what we have said in the past and I don't think the question of the Dalai Lama leaving India or asking to leave India arises at this time," he said.
China has long resented India's decision to give shelter to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, following a 1959 revolt against Chinese rule.