Beijing: Terming the vexed boundary problem with India as "a burden leftover from history of colonialism", China on June 19 said it would try to find a "fair and reasonable" solution to the issue during the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

"China has solved most land border issues with most of our land neighbours and we have learnt that the principle of mutual understanding, mutual accommodation and mutual adjustment is the practical method to follow in order to resolve the dispute," a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official told reporters at a special briefing on Vajpayee's visit beginning on June 22.

"We would like to find a fair and reasonable solution to this problem on negotiations with the Indian side on an equal footing following the above set of principles," the official said on the boundary dispute, which to a large extent impaired the smooth development of Sino-India ties.

Describing the border problem as "a burden leftover from history and colonialism", he said, "We think that the boundary issue should not be an obstacle in the development of bilateral relations and we will create conditions for the solution of this issue amid improvement of China-India relations."

India says that approximately 38,000 sq kms of Indian territory are under occupation by China in Jammu and Kashmir. In addition, under the so-called Sino-Pakistan "boundary agreement" of 1963, Pakistan has illegally ceded approximately 5,120 sq kms of Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to China.

PTI