Clarify call for meaningful dialogue, China tells India
MORE THAN 130 COUNTRIES TOOK PART AT THE BRF, A SUMMIT HELD TO SHOWCASE CHINESE PRESIDENT XI JINPING’S BRI
private way,” Hua said.
She added India is always welcome to join the BRI but it depends on the country’s attitude towards the mega-connectivity project.
“China welcomes the participation of India to the BRI, the answer is clear,” she said. “Now it depends on what attitude the Indian side holds.”
The CPEC is not about “conflict” with any side but for regional peace and prosperity, she said. The CPEC, a cluster of road, rail and energy projects, will connect Pakistan’s southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea and Kashgar in China’s far western Xinjiang province.
India has reservations about the project as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which New Delhi says challenges its sovereignty by lending legitimacy to Islamabad’s claim over the territory.
“No country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Baglay had said in the Saturday night statement.
Hua, however, pointed to the participation of 130 countries in the BRF, indicating the initiative had received a warm response from many nations. But “….Our door will always remain open and we will always welcome the participation of the Indian side (in the BRI),” she added.
Earlier in the day, a Chinese state media editorial warned that India’s shallow and stereotypical view that China was working against it through the CPEC led New Delhi to boycott the BRF and has the potential to destroy bilateral ties.
Calling the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) a “military group”, the editorial said the burden of the current problems — including New Delhi’s call to ban JeM chief Masood Azhar in the UN — in bilateral ties is entirely on India, and China has nothing to do with any of the issues troubling relations between the two neighbours.
“Overall, these new problems are caused by India’s requirements for China. However, China does not do as it wants,” it said.
“China insists that the Kashmir dispute is between India and Pakistan and it (China) has no intention of intervening. The CPEC is a cooperation project in a purely economic sense with no aim to stir up political trouble,” the editorial said.