World Tibet Network News Monday, May 18, 1998

BEIJING, 18 May (AP)--China accused India on Monday of ignoring recent improvements in relations and dredging up old disputes to justify its nuclear tests.Domestic considerations, not international tensions, drove Indian leaders to conduct the five nuclear tests last week, the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's flag ship newspaper said in a commentary released late Monday."Finding themselves in difficulties, Indian leaders have found spreading the China-threat theory very useful, but finding no real basis in this,they racked their brains and brought up old things to try to confuse public opinion," the commentary said.

People's Daily editorials are reviewed by senior party leaders and reflect their thinking. The commentary is to appear in newspapers Tuesday and was read Monday on state-run television's nationwide evening newscast. People's Daily pilloried Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for writing to U.S. President Clinton that India faced a hostile, nuclear-armed neighbor which invaded it in 1962, a clear reference to China. "Nobody believes this type of lying logic and the falsehood of the so-called "China-threat theory'," the commentary said. The two countries fought a brief and inconclusive border war over territory disputed since the early 1900s when Britain ruled India. China only attacked Indian troops after they invaded Chinese territory, People's Daily said rehashing Beijing's version of events. To make matters worse, Delhi has allowed the Dalai Lama to use his exile in India to incite separatism in Chinese-ruled Tibet. "On the matter of Tibet,the Indian leaders have done a disservice to the Chinese pe

ople," the commentary said. People's Daily noted that despite rocky periods, Chinese-Indian ties have achieved hard-earned improvements in recent years and friendship suits "the interests of the two countries' peoples." It urged India not to place news tumbling blocks in the way of improved ties.

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