Former envoys slam Beijing for invoking old LAC perception
Ashok Kantha, who served as India’s ambassador to China during 2014-16 and is currently director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, described .
Former envoys slam Beijing for invoking old LAC perception
China’s efforts to base the resolution of the boundary dispute with India on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) proposed by premier Zhou Enlai in 1959 are untenable as that does not conform with the actual situation on the ground, two former ambassadors involved in the border talks said on Tuesday. The external affairs ministry said on Tuesday that India has never accepted the unilaterally defined 1959 LAC and stressed that crucial agreements with China committed both sides to confirming and clarifying the alignment of the boundary. Former foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who played a key role in negotiations that led to the signing of the Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the LAC in 1993, described the Chinese foreign ministry’s reference to the 1959 LAC as a “red herring”. Menon has highlighted several problems with the 1959 proposal in a chapter of his 2016 book Choices devoted to the 1993 agreement. The Chinese side described the so-called LAC of 1959 “…
