China’s border area with India is growing “more amicable” with the militaries of both sides ready to resolve problems, including incursions, through polite negotiations, the Chinese media reported on Wednesday.

“From busy passes to lonely sentry posts high in the Himalayas, Chinese personnel are warming up to the uniformed guards on the other side,” the official Xinhua news agency reported in a commentary on the current state of China’s 22,000 km-long land borders with countries like Russia, India and Vietnam.

Jin Guangyong, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier at a sentry post along China’s southwestern border with India, says Indian soldiers often shout “hello” to greet Chinese soldiers. Isolated by snow for eight months a year, the two sentry posts, separated by a canyon, are the only signs of human habitation there. “I can feel their loneliness, since we suffer it ourselves. We respond to their greetings,” Jin says.

But Major Ai Huaichun remembers skirmishes when troops from the two sides confronted each other on patrol just a decade ago. “In the 1990s, meetings usually ended in squabbles that solved nothing. The two parties could argue for hours about whether a soldier had trespassed or not,” says Ai, who used to serve as interpreter at joint meetings for 11 years.

China and India fought over the border in 1962 and hostility afflicted bilateral relations for decades until the end of the 20th century, the report noted.

The year 2000 marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and India, which helped warm relations between the troops. In June 2006, the Nathu La Pass, a century-old trading post that sits 4,545 meters above sea level between Tibet and Sikkim, was reopened after being closed 40 years ago. “Border meetings have become more friendly. The two sides tend to reflect on progress in Sino-Indian relations and constructively plan for further exchanges,” Ai says. “Now, if problems like trespassing come to the meeting table, both sides politely agree to further investigate and then settle it through negotiations.”

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