M A I N   N E W S

Chinese Prez to meet Modi at BRICS Summit: Ansari
Vice-President says Xi keen to establish good relations with new leadership, may visit India by year-end
DINESH KUMAR
On board special flight

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet on the sidelines of the forthcoming BRICS Summit in Brazil later this month which is likely to be followed by President Xi’s visit to India before the year-end. The Chinese leadership has also reiterated their invites to President Pranab Mukherjee and PM Narendra Modi.

Announcing this on board the special Air India flight from Beijing to New Delhi on Monday, Vice-President Mohammed Hamid Ansari said the Chinese leadership was keen to establish “personal-level contacts with our new leadership”. “It was mentioned to me by President Xi that he was looking forward to meet Modi on the sidelines of the forthcoming BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) meeting. It was also hinted that sometime later this year, the Chinese President would visit India,” he told the accompanying media team.

That there is considerable interest in the new government in New Delhi was also evident from the nature of questions scholars asked Ansari at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), China’s premier think tank in Beijing which is closely monitored by the diplomatic community in Beijing. Most of questions asked by the Chinese scholars pertained to the foreign and economic policy of the new government in New Delhi. This was even though Ansari had shortly earlier stated in his speech that there would be “continuity in foreign policy despite the change in government”. Later, he said: “We put it across to them (the Chinese leadership) that a relationship with China has been a consistent item of policy of the Government of India and continues to be an important item in the priorities of the new government.”

In addition to the border issue, a major cause for concern in bilateral relations is the serious imbalance in trade. “We told them upfront that even though the volume of our trade is very large, the imbalance is so severe that this cannot continue. Either we increase our exports (to China) or they increase their investments in our country,” he said. China’s response, he added, was positive but they want to study some aspects. “It is a complicated subject, a technical subject and discussions will need to take place at the expert level,” he said.

The trade imbalance between the two countries currently stands at around $36.5 billion which is of serious concern to India. The imbalance is considered to be mainly because of the strong regulatory systems in China that discourage Indian exports in sectors such as Information Technology and pharmaceuticals which is India’s forte. India and China are hoping that trade between the two will touch $100 billion by next year from the current $65.5 billion.

On the issue of border dispute and skirmishes, Ansari took a more realistic line indicating that this was a long drawn and time consuming issue. “The border issue has been lingering for many years now. The positive development is that between 1993 and 2013, the two countries have slowly reached some agreements with two objectives; one that behavior on the border should be handled in a way that the situation does not go out of control. And second, the two countries have worked out a framework to resolve contentious issues”.

“There are two things you can’t choose. You can’t choose your neighbours and you can’t choose your relatives. They are there for good or not so good. Either you fight or you can be friends. And the important thing is that no one prefers fighting,” he said.