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PM’s China visit: Boundary not key issue, focus on trade
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 12
The boundary row will take a back seat during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s China visit (January 13-15) and the focus will be on improving all-round bilateral ties, particularly trade.

When Manmohan Singh lands in Beijing on his maiden visit to China as Indian Prime Minister tomorrow morning, boundary-dispute resolution can hardly be on his mind even though he himself described resolution of the border row with China as a strategic objective just a couple of days ago.

Foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon dropped enough hints of boundary talks being put on the back burner during the PM’s visit when he said at his briefing yesterday that the two SRs (special representatives) will be there but there would be no formal talks on the boundary issue. National security advisor M.K Narayanan and vic-foreign minister Dai Bingguo - the two SRs - will be meeting informally.

India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (14,670 square miles) of its territory, while Beijing lays claim on the whole of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which has an area of 90,000 square kilometres.

From the Indian perspective, one important talking point would be its rising trade deficit with China. As per the latest figures, the bilateral trade between India and China has already breached the $ 38 billion mark with balance of trade heavily in favour of China.

India currently has a trade deficit of over $ 7 billion which is likely to be doubled by 2010 if corrective steps were not taken.

During the Prime Minister’s China visit, the two countries will be signing five bilateral agreements/MoU in railways, housing, geo-sciences, land resource management and traditional medicine sectors.

The most interesting of these would be the railway cooperation. India has so far not commented on a Chinese train service to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa launched last year but is apprehensive about Beijing’s plans to extend it to Kathmandu.