'No third-party involvement in 'border disputes' with India, says China pointing towards Japan

A day after a Chinese daily took a dig at Japan's growing closeness with India, China's foreign ministry today declared it was opposed to any "third party involvement in India's north eastern states".

Talking to reporters, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said: "You also mentioned Act East policy. You must be clear that the boundary of India and China border area has not been totally delimited. We have disputes on the eastern section of the boundary."

"We are now trying to seek a solution through negotiations that is acceptable to both sides. Under such circumstances, various parties should respect such aspects and any third party should not be involved in our efforts to resolve the disputes," the spokesman said.

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India and China recently stepped back from the border area in Doklam after months of diplomatic and public wrangling over the issue.

On India-Japan joint statement by PM Modi and Japanese PM Abe, Hua said there was no mention of China but was quick to add her government's view on the Malabar military exercise conducted recently by India, Japanand theUS, she said, "We know that to resolve the disputes the directly concerned parties have to uphold the rights to freedom of navigation, over flights entitled to countries under international law. This is China's position."

"We also hope various parties can uphold the rights to freedom of navigation of over flights by countries in various waters," the spokesman said referring to Japan.

"I should also add that the India and Japan are important countries in Asia. We hope the normal development of the relationship can be conducive to regional, peace and development and play a constructive role in this process," she said.