China and India will initiate a “maritime dialogue” to help resolve tensions over their shared border and their navies in the Indian Ocean, The Indian Express reported. Chinese foreign minster Yang Jiechi and his Indian counterpart S M Krishna agreed to hold the first meeting next week, ahead of President Hu Jintao’s visit to New Delhi for a BRICs summit in March, as well as set up an Indo-China media forum. Border tensions center around a disputed area in northern India called Arunchal Pradesh that is home to an important international river, called the Yalong Tsampo in China and the Siang or Brahmaputra in India. “Siang has dried up like never before. I strongly suspect that China has started diverting the Brahmaputra or that it has built a dam to block the flow of the river,” Arunchal Pradesh home minster Tako Dabi said Thursday. Tensions are also rising for China in the South China Sea, as the country rejected allegations from Vietnam on Thursday that Chinese forces assaulted and tried to rob Vietnamese fishermen on February 22.
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