India war not likely: poll

Source:Global Times Published: 2012-10-20 2:05:03

More than 80 percent of Chinese people feel neutral or positive about Indians, and most believe the two neighboring countries can move beyond the specter of war, according to a Global Times poll released Friday.

Five decades after the 1962 war along the Chinese-Indian border, the Global Poll Center affiliated to the Global Times conducted a survey among people above the age of 15 in seven major cities, in a bid to explore how the Chinese have been remembering that dispute, and what their impressions about India are now.

When asked their impression of India, 78 percent of respondents said they have a neutral stance toward the country, while 16.4 percent dislike the country.

Only about 15 percent of the respondents knew about the 1962 war.

"Compared to Indians who have a deep impression of the war because they were defeated, few Chinese know about the war, " Ma Li, a researcher with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Friday.

More than 61 percent of the surveyed regarded Sino-Indian relations as normal or good, while over 34 percent of the respondents believed the two countries have constant frictions.

When asked about the impediments to Sino-Indian relations, respondents said security concerns caused by border disputes, mistrust against each other during the rise of the two powers and the issue of the Dalai Lama were the top three factors affecting bilateral ties.

About 75 percent said China and India could walk out of the shadow of the war between the two sides. Ma said the data was encouraging, which showed that China and India have more common understandings than disputes.

The survey also found that slightly over 40 percent of the respondents believed that there is the possibility of military conflict on the borders of China and India, while more than 39 percent of the surveyed said there is little possibility of such conflicts while around 17 percent ruled out the possibility.

Ma said the result showed a misunderstanding of China's development and security strategies by some respondents.

He believed that in the foreseeable future, China and India wouldn't have any head-on confrontation.

"It's unimaginable for two nuclear-armed powers to fight each other," he said.

Global Times



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