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China isn't enemy, says India

India does not regard China as a potential enemy and wants a solution to all 'substantive' problems with it through dialogue, the prime minister's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra said Wednesday.

"India desires to solve the problems between the two countries in the spirit of friendship and co-operation,'' Mishra told correspondents in New Delhi.

He pointed out there was a framework for negotiations between the two under the Joint Working Group. The next JWG meeting was due in Beijing. Discussions were going on about its timing, he added.

Mishra made it clear that India's nuclear programme was ''purely defensive'' and it was not interested in a nuclear arms race with China, much less with Pakistan.

Mishra also disputed Indo-Tibetan Border Police Director General Gautam Kaul's recent statement that there was a build-up of Chinese forces along the border. ''There is no unusual activity on the Line of Actual Control between India and China. Like in previous years, there are border patrols on both sides,'' he said.

The principal secretary's remarks come a day after China dismissed Kaul's charge as ''inaccurate''.

''There are two agreements between India and China which we are scrupulously observing,'' Mishra said.

The first is a deal on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the LoC, signed by the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao during his visit to Beijing in September 1993 and the second, an agreement on confidence building measures in the military field along the border, signed during President Jiang Zemin's visit to New Delhi in November 1996.

Mishra welcomed reports from Beijing that there were some prospects of negotiations between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.

Asked why China reacted sharply to the recent meeting between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Dalai Lama, Mishra said, ''We have reaffirmed our stand on the Dalai Lama issue to China on several occasions.''

He pointed out this was not the first time a meeting had taken place between the Buddhist spiritual leader and an Indian prime minister.

On whether any political dialogue had been initiated with China in the aftermath of the nuclear tests, he said a meeting had taken place between the prime minister's special envoy Jaswant Singh and the Chinese foreign minister in Manila in July, on the fringes of the Asia Regional Forum meetings.

''Contacts are continuing between the two countries after that,'' he added.

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