(This story originally appeared in on Aug 31, 2017)

China’s defence ministry refuted reports in the Chinese social media that India agreed to enter into an agreement on the Doklam issue after Beijing promised a loan of $20 billion.Defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang , replying to a question, said, “On your question about China providing loans to India to withdraw troops, we have checked with the relevant authorities of the government and such reports are pure fabrication.”A similar statement, refuting India taking $20 billion loan, was made by the Chinese foreign ministry, while People’s Daily, the official organ of the Communist Party , ran a report about the money offer being false.But, Chinese official agencies and media seem to be keeping up the speculation on the issue alive by repeated denials because it serves the purpose of showing that China is financially much stonger than India, which makes it a difficult competitor in a military contest, said an observer.Chinese foreign ministry recently tried to convey this idea of superiority by describing China as a “major country” while discussing the recent agreement on Doklam with India.Despite the recent differences, the two sides will continue to make efforts to enhance military to military exchanges to “avoid misjudgement and misunderstanding”, Ren said.China’s military also said it will continue to patrol the Doklam despite the recent agreement between India and China. The agreement resulted in China halting road construction in the disputed area. But the defence ministry indicated that Beijing sees this as a temporary halt and not a permanent stoppage of infrastructure construction.“The Chinese side will continue to patrol the Donglong (Doklam) area for a long period of time to better guard our border and improve the living and working conditions of the military and civilians living in the area,” Ren said.“We have long built infrastructure construction and including building of roads. In future, we will continue to make plan for infrastructure construction taking into consideration various factors including weather conditions,” Ren added.On recent stone-pelting between Chinese and Indian troops at the Pangong lake in Ladakh, Ren said, “I would like to stress that the Indian side should enforce strict discipline on the border defence troops and abide by the agreements and consensus reached by the two sides so as to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border.”