Beijing, June 4
External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee arrived in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou today, kick-starting his four-day visit to the communist giant during which the boundary row and irritants surrounding it are expected to dominate his talks with the leadership here.
Mukherjee was received at the airport by India’s Ambassador to China, Nirupama Rao, and senior Chinese officials.
On his maiden trip after becoming external affairs minister, Mukherjee is carrying a wide-ranging agenda from long-running border issue often dogged by irritants to trade and water to discuss with his counterpart Yang Jiechi. During the visit, the first high-level contact since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tour in January and the first by an Indian external affairs minister since 2002, Mukherjee will also hold talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Mukherjee is at the booming capital city of Guangzhou in Guangdong province, about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong, for the formal inauguration of the Consulate General of India. He will arrive in Beijing tomorrow.
The visit, which is aimed at building on the positive momentum in bilateral ties, comes amid warmer relations between the two Asian giants and a thriving trade that went beyond the expectations of both sides, but the ties have also come under stress with reports of incursions and China’s claims over Indian territory. Mukherjee and Yang are expected to review the progress in the boundary talks between the special representatives, who have conducted 11 rounds of negotiations on the basis of political parameters and guiding principles for the settlement of the issue concluded in April 2005.
On the eve of Mukherjee’s visit, Beijing said the two countries did not see each other as a threat and it would work toward reaching through dialogue a “fair, reasonable and acceptable” solution to the boundary row.
“The two countries have reached a consensus that both are important neighbours to each other. The two countries will not regard each other as a threat,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said yesterday. China has said the two sides would hold talks on “a series of issues, including the boundary on which discussions had made some progress” in recent years.
Enhancing trade between the two countries, which has reached nearly $ 40 billion and is targeted at $ 60 billion by 2010, is also expected to figure as a key issue at the talks, as also the sharing of hydrological data on the Brahmaputra, which rises on the Tibetan plateau. Tibet, a sensitive issue in the Sino-India ties, is also likely to come up for discussion.
— PTI
