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Chinese envoy to media: Listen to your leaders
Days after Indian government asked the media to eschew "hype" over reported Chinese incursions, China's ambassador Zhang Yan met Home Secretary GK Pillai in New Delhi and tried to clarify the picture.
Days after Indian government asked the media to eschew "hype" over reported Chinese incursions, China's ambassador Zhang Yan on Tuesday met Home Secretary GK Pillai in New Delhi and tried to clarify the picture.
"Nothing is happening. You listen to your leaders," Zhang told reporters when asked about his nearly half-an-hour meeting with Pillai.
The Chinese ambassador's meeting came in the wake of repeated assertions by top Indian officials and the army chief that reported incursions have occurred due to differences in perception of the Line of Actual Control.
Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh downplayed the incursions amid reports about Beijng's unhappiness at the way Chinese border transgressions have been reported in the Indian media to conjure up a China threat.
Seeking to deflate hype over reported Chinese intrusions across the undemarcated border, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Saturday stressed that there was "no significant increase" in incursions across all sections of the over 4,000 km border between the two countries.
"Contrary to the popular perception, the situation along the border has remained peaceful for decades," Rao said.
National Security Adviser MK Narayanan and Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor also cautioned against the media hype and stressed that there was nothing alarming about the reported incursions.
Narayanan expressed concern, saying that if such reports continued, "someone somewhere might lose his cool and something might go wrong."
Underlining the developing nature of relationship between India and China, Rao, a former ambassador to China, said the leaderships of the two countries are in regular communication over important bilateral issues.
"We remain in constant touch over all mutual issues. The leadership-level understandings and communication remain open all the time," Rao said.
