China accused of border incursion during Xi's India visit

India has accused China of a border incursion as Chinese President Xi Jinping makes his first visit to its neighboring giant.

Media reported around 1,000 Chinese soldiers had crossed the border into the Ladakh region of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

A source who wished to remain anonymous confirmed to news agency AFP that the troops had made the incursion.

"The government has sent reinforcements," he added.

The spokesman for India's minister of external affairs Syed Akbaruddin told reporters on Thursday Modi would raise border issues with the Chinese leader during his three-day visit.

Modi, whose 64th birthday was Wednesday, welcomed Xi in his home state of Gujarat.

On Thursday, Xi was welcomed in the Presidential Palace in New Delhi for formal talks, which are expected to focus on trade and economic issues as well as Chinese investment in infrastructure.

"We can bring prosperity to Asia, and we can create opportunities for the world," Xi said during a ceremonial welcome at the palace.

A border was never clearly defined in the vastly uninhabited Himalayan region that separates the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Conflicts there have been counted as the highest in the world. A brief war was fought over the border in 1962. The Actual Line of Control (ALC) was established in the 1990s in a bid to end that dispute.

sb/nm (AFP, AP, dpa, PTI)