Daily Times

LAHORE: China on Monday expressed anger over Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat’s remarks, warning that such “unconstructive” comments would hurt peace and tranquillity in the border area.

“During the past one year, relations between China and India witnessed some twists and turns,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said.

In a last week’s conference, Gen. Rawat had said that India needed to shift its military focus from its western border with Pakistan to its northern border with China.

The Indian Army Chief also hinted at the possibility of the return of Chinese troops to Doklam — an area that was the scene of a tense 73-day standoff between Indian and Chinese troops last year.

Mr Lu pointed out that in September, the leaders of India and China reached some important consensus on properly handling the differences and promote China-India relations.

“Recently, two sides enhanced dialogue on consultations, and bilateral relations have shown sound momentum of improvement and development.

“Under such background, the unconstructive remarks by the Indian senior officials not only go against the consensus reached by the two heads of state, and do not conform to the efforts made by the two sides to improve and develop bilateral relations.”

“It cannot help to preserve tranquillity and peace in the border areas.”