India is not intimidated by China and the border dispute between the two countries could be settled by talks, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur has said, noting that the media was overplaying the recent tensions between the neighbours.
"We are not intimidated by China. I think we are very confident of our own strength but certainly we are very confident that this issue can be settled by talks," said Kaur, who is on an official visit to New York.
"There has been a lot of media hype created over what the Chinese are doing," she added. Kaur vehemently denied recent allegations -- that India's leaders were appeasing China by not reacting strongly to escalation in tensions.
"We have a good enough relationship to be able to sort all this out across the tablen," she told journalists.
Responding to reports that Beijing is projecting Jammu and Kashmir as a separate country in maps and media kits, the senior politician from Patiala declared, "There never has been any question of our giving up our sovereign right on Kashmir. There is no question of our giving up our sovereign right on Arunachal Pradesh."
"The prime ministers have reiterated, the foreign minister has reiterated, that these are integral parts of India and will remain so," she added.
Earlier this month, China protested against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, and is currently pressuring India to scrap spiritual leader Dalai Lama's trip to the state in November.
An editorial in Chinese newspaper People's Daily slammed New Delhi for being obsessed towards gaining superpower status and turning "a blind eye to the concessions China had repeatedly made over the disputed border issues."
Earlier this week, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor also told journalists that disagreement between the two countries should not be "blown out of proportion."
"I think it's important that everyone scale down a little bit the temperature. It's not as if there is any substantive reason for hostilities between our countries," he said on the last leg of his trip to New York.
