"Beijing and New Delhi would benefit by focusing their energies now on creating a conducive environment for peaceful solutions to emerge," said Hass, who served as director for the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council in the Obama administration.
Ted Carpenter, a senior fellow of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, said the dispute should be addressed through patient, creative diplomacy by Beijing and New Delhi. "Both governments need to make resolving this troubling issue a very high priority," he said.
Hass said the U.S. could use the dispute as an opportunity to clarify privately for both China and India its strategic interest in stable and productive relations between the two Asian powers.
"Beyond that, the United States should avoid involving itself in the dispute, either privately or publicly, as any such involvement likely will not help to calm tensions, but could have the unintended effect of hardening each side's position as well as souring U.S. relations with one or both of the disputants," he said.
The U.S. has not taken a side so far. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauertsaid on July 18 that the U.S. is concerned about the ongoing situation there, saying both sides should work together to try to come up with some better sort of arrangement for peace.
