The World : India-China Progress Told

China announced that it and India will establish a group to tackle a border dispute that flared into a brief war in 1962 and has poisoned relations between the world’s most populous nations ever since. The agreement was announced at the end of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s historic visit to Beijing. Foreign Ministry spokesman Li Zhaoxing also said that good will fostered by the Gandhi visit could lead to a solution to the border issue “in the near future.” He declined comment on the makeup of the group, but Indian sources said it will be at the deputy foreign minister level. China claims 36,000 square miles of mountainous frontier in what New Delhi says is northeast India’s Arunachal Pradesh province. India also says China illegally occupies 14,500 square miles on its western border.