SHANGHAI (CHINA) – Chinese government-backed Global Times reported on Saturday that Beijing will release five Indian nationals detained earlier this month from an area bordering Tibet.
The newspaper said that the five persons were intelligence agents in the guise of hunters and dismissed claims they were kidnapped.
After reports that five Indian citizens had gone missing from near the border with Tibet in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian minister said that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army confirmed they were found in China.
The disappearance of the five persons coincided with a face-off in the western Himalayas during which both India and China accused each other of firing in the air.
Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on Weibo that China-India relations were slowly stabilising. China observers often keep a close watch on Hu’s messages on social media platforms to keep tabs on the Beijing policymakers.
“It seems that the successive meetings between the Chinese and Indian defence ministers and foreign ministers have played a positive role in cooling the situation,” Hu wrote.
“In addition, the People’s Liberation Army defended every inch of the country’s land, and the Indian Army ultimately failed to take advantage of it.”