Do not ignore Chinese General's warning: Yashwant tells Centre

New Delhi: BJP leader and former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha today urged the government to take serious note of a Chinese General’s warning to India against provoking “new trouble” by increasing military deployment at the border. “If the Chinese general has spoken, he has spoken with the full authority of the Chinese government. And this coming just before the defence minister of India planning to visit China is also very significant because they are sending a message,” Sinha said.[caption id=“attachment_932669” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Yashwant Sinha. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] Ahead of the arrival of Defence Minister AK Antony in Beijing for high-level talks on Thursday, Major General Luo Yuan, Executive Vice President and Secretary General of China Strategy Culture Promotion Association had said that there was no denying that there are tensions and problems between India and China particularly at the border areas. “Anyone who has dealt with China knows that the Chinese have this devious ways of sending messages so that the interlocutor is destabilized even before he starts talking to them. I think, this is another example of such an attempt by the Chinese side,” Sinha said. Urging the government to take it up seriously, Sinha said, “If there is no explanation forthcoming from the Chinese government, then I would even go to the extent of suggesting that the defence minister should cancel his trip.” While talking to foreign correspondents in Beijing, Luo had said that there was “still problem of 90,000 sq km of territory occupied by the Indian side and these are the problems left over from history and we should look at it with cool head”. Luo’s 90,000 sq km remark referred to China’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh which it calls as southern Tibet. India asserts that the border dispute covered 4,000 km along Line Actual Control (LAC), while China states that the dispute was confined to 2,000 km that is Arunachal Pradesh. The two sides held their last boundary talks on 28 June. Antony is the first Indian defence minister in seven years to visit China. He will have formal talks with his Chinese counterpart General Chang Wanquan. PTI