Gandhinagar: China’s Charge d’Affaires to India Liu Jinsong has said that the Indo-China boundary disagreements can be solved by diplomacy as ‘the similarities between the two neighbouring countries outnumber the differences’.

Delivering the Ambassador Lecture Series at Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) here, the minister level senior Chinese diplomat who was also the Deputy Chief of Mission to the Chinese embassy in India, said, ‘the boundary disagreements between the two countries can be solved by diplomacy only and existing agreements at the Line of actual control should be implemented. The similarities between India and China outnumber the differences and hence there is a need to focus on bilateral relation and friendship.”

In his address yesterday, the senior Chinese diplomat further said that Indo-China relations rest on five principles of peaceful co-existence – the Panchsheel.

Talking about supremacy of East (to which India and China both belong) over West in evolution of various laws and the ages old relations between India and China Mr Jinsong said that exchange on legal issues began since a long time ago through the exchange of Buddhist teachings. Xuanzang and Faxian have come to India and learnt a lot about the discipline of Buddhism and spread it in China. He disagreed with the statement that law comes from western texts. ‘In fact, law evolves from our civilizations. Criminal laws, civil laws and judicial laws come from South East Asia. Indian, Chinese and Islamic legal systems are the most important in the evolution of law,’ he stressed.

In his lecture the Chinese Diplomat accepted that although law is difficult to study yet he stressed on the
importance of law. ‘The founding fathers of independent India such as Gandhi, Ambedkar and Patel were all students of law and so also current politicians such as Jaitley and even Xi Jinping and the Chinese Premier,’ he said.

Talking about other world affairs the Chinese diplomat said that the World affairs should not be dominated by one or two countries; rather there should be promotion of the spirit of equality. Although BRICS countries have major shares in global GDP and trade flows, there is a lack in proportional share in voting rights at IMF and other international organizations.

About the South China sea dispute, Mr. Jinsong said that the Chinese sovereignty over the island has solid legal and historical basis while addressing the South China issues. He claimed that the current conflict is in violation of Philippines and China treaty and the Tribunal is not an official UN organization or International Court of Justice (ICJ) body currently and hence the decision is illegal and invalid. He laid stress that bilateral negotiation is the only way to solve this issue.

DeshGujarat