China cautions India on Vietnam overture

Beijing: China has cautioned India against accepting Vietnamese Prime Minister's call for New Delhi to play an active role in the South China Sea, saying that the dispute in the waters was to be resolved only by countries "directly involved". On a visit to New Delhi, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was quoted as saying that he hoped India, as a major power in the region, would "actively support" countries involved to solve the dispute peacefully. Relations between China and Vietnam have recently been strained on account of the dispute, although China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, travelled to Hanoi this week - the same time that the Vietnamese Prime Minister was in New Delhi - with the aim, officials said, of bringing relations back on track.