China looking beyond border dispute with India?

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Communist Party-Run Newspaper Adopts Conciliatory Tone On 1962 War And Bilateral Ties
Indrani Bagchi TNN

New Delhi:“The border issue does not define the ‘whole’ of the bilateral relationship and should, therefore, not affect the overall development of Sino-Indian relations. Before a final settlement is reached on the border dispute, the two sides must work together to jointly safeguard peace and stability in the border areas.”
This is possibly the first “official” commentary by a mainstream Chinese daily newspaper, and is surprisingly pacific. The Guangming Daily, a newspaper run by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee which targets intellectuals, has taken an almost conciliatory view of the 1962 war and the border problem between China and India. The platform and content of the article are being seen as significant.
In the past month, while Indian media and the commentariat have written and spoken extensively on the 1962 conflict, more often than not focusing on Indian failures and Chinese “duplicity”, Chinese media, which is extensively state-controlled, has remained largely silent, with only a few newspapers like Liberation Daily and Global Times (which are also state-owned but carry less weight) publishing commentaries or refuting claims like the one by Indian Air Force chief NAK Browne that the outcome of the war might have been different if the IAF had been pressed into service.
For the first time, the Chinese “line” seems to become clearer. The comment, written by Lu Yang, says: “Once, our two countries went to war in the very same border region -- but the smoke of that conflict has long dispersed.” Asserting, in Manmohan Singh-like terms, that “the world is large enough for India and China to strengthen cooperation with each other in order to achieve common development and prosperity”, the commentary details the number of agreements on the border issue, including the most recent “new mechanism (which) provides a new platform for the two sides to communicate and grasp a developing situation in a timely way, as well as allows for more effective protection of peace and tranquility in the border areas”.
The article notes the “healthy and stable development” of bilateral relations between China and India, the peaceful border and “regular stream of consultations through a variety of mechanisms” which, it says, has reached “an important consensus”.
China also appears to reaffirm the 2005 Political Parameters and Guiding Principles agreement. In reality, it has walked back from a key provision in that agreement, so an affirmation of the pact is significant.