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Indian PM to seek common ground on China visit
13 Jan 2008 08:47:23 GMT
 Source: Reuters
BEIJING, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in China on Sunday for a three-day visit aimed at reducing mutual suspicions over long-standing border disputes, while building on strong trade ties to foster trust.

In his first visit to China since taking office in 2004, Singh is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao, top legislator Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Leaders of the world's fastest growing major economies and most populous nations may find common ground on energy and climate change, but analysts cautioned against hopes for any major breakthroughs.

"If you compare this visit to previous years, it is a very welcome departure that there is no attempt to project some grand achievement," said Alka Acharya, head of East Asian studies at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

"There is a certain normality coming about in terms of high-level interaction ... but there is considerable depth in the relationship which has yet to be explored."

Before his arrival in Beijing, Singh called the relationship an "imperative necessity" and dismissed talk India was ganging up with the United States, Japan and Australia against China.

Despite annual summits between the former foes, a "strategic partnership" announced three years ago has yet to take off.

"As of now we are comfortable with our relationship with China," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said on Friday.

"It's made good progress, we think both sides are determined to settle the boundary question, and we are both successful in maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border."

COMMON GROUND AND DISPUTED LAND

In their reaction to climate change, India and China sound at their most harmonious. Both resist calls for mandatory curbs on emissions for developing nations and insist the greater burden for mitigation be borne by the already developed West.

Yet many bilateral irritants remain, such as a festering border dispute and trade barriers, said Zhang Li, at China's Sichuan University.

"This visit probably won't bring breakthroughs in those issues, but it could set a more positive tone for dealing with them," he said.

The economic relationship between Asia's engines of growth falls far short of potential. Bilateral trade has crossed $30 billion and is growing fast but non-tariff barriers remain high.

India is unhappy the trade balance is increasingly skewed in China's favour, and would prefer to be exporting more finished goods and fewer raw materials such as iron ore.

China complains of barriers to direct investment in India and wants a "level playing field", according to its ambassador to India, Zhang Yan.

But there is a more fundamental problem with Sino-Indian relations, a border dispute that led to war in 1962. China still claims much of India's vast northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, land it says is rightly part of Tibet.

Decades of glacial negotiations have produced little more than a commitment to solve the problem through dialogue.

Last year, China even seemed to harden its position by restating its claim to the Buddhist monastery at Tawang, and Indian troops complain of frequent border incursions last year.

There are other concerns too, including China's longstanding relationship with India's estranged neighbour, Pakistan, while Beijing eyes uneasily India's burgeoning friendship with the United States and its traditional support for Tibetan refugees.

Jian Yang, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, says China does not treat India as a threat but the reverse is not true.

"For China, the biggest concern is to make sure that India doesn't feel threatened by China's rise, and that India won't move too close to countries like the United States and Japan as a kind of balance against China," he said. (Reporting by Simon Denyer and Y.P. Rajesh in New Delhi, Chris Buckley, Lindsay Beck and Ken Wills in Beijing; Editing by Jerry Norton)


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Last updated:Sun Jan 13 08:46:14 2008