Troop reductions along the Sino-Indian border, restricting the scale of military exercises and ensuring tranquillity and stability in the border areas are among the CBMs that Beijing has suggested in a white paper on `China's National Defence'.

The reiteration of China's policy of employing the CBM route are contained in the white paper, issued in Beijing and which has been reprinted in the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) journal `Strategic Digest'.

The white paper suggests a new formula for world peace: Abandon the Cold War mentality, cultivate new concepts of security and seek new ways to safeguard peace. But the overriding emphasis for safeguarding its security interests is its faith in CBMs. China has placed ``great stress on and actively promotes cooperation in CBMs considering theestablishment of mutual trust between nations as an effective way to maintain security'', the paper underlines.

Following the anti-Chinese sentiments expressed in this country while explaining India's compulsions for conducting the nuclear tests, the reaffirmation of China's faith in CBMs should be a welcome development.

In an agreement signed in November 1996, China and India agreed to a number of military CBMs along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Apart from the reduction of military personnel on either side of the border, the two countries also agreed to strictly respect and observe the line of mutual control and not to cross over the LAC pending an ultimate resolution of the boundary question.

The two countries also agreed to refrain from conducting military exercises directed against each other in the close proximity of the LAC and to provide prior notification of military exercises in the border areas. There would also be greater exchanges and communication between their military personnelposted in the border areas.

China has once again put forward its proposal for a `no first use' undertaking on the part of the nuclear weapon states, claiming that the threats to world peace were declining and relations between the major powers were generally on the upswing.

Fairness, rationality, comprehensiveness and balance in its relations with other states are the four highlights of the new `security concepts' that China is propagating. Among others, mutual and equal security, dialogue and cooperation without interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, preventing military forces from threatening or harming other countries' security and stability, adhering to a National Defence policy that is defensive in nature, CBMs in border and disputed areas on a bilateral basis and engaging in friendly contacts between military forces.