New Delhi, October 10
After months of tension over a plethora of issues, China is showing a keen desire to mend fences with India. In a move to put the relationship back on the track, the Chinese President is sending to India one of his key strategists to meet the Indian leadership and clarify Beijing’s position on certain contentious issues.

Zhou Yongkang, who is number seven in the hierarchy of the all-powerful Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and is in-charge of security related issues, is expected to be here towards the end of the month.

In fact, the two sides are also learnt to be exploring the possibility of a visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to India towards the end of the year. However, talks on the subject were at a preliminary stage, sources said. The two countries had started 2010 on a positive note celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between them on a grand scale. However, the aggressiveness displayed by China on a host of issues in the last few months has caused anxiety in New Delhi.

The denial of visa by China to Lt Gen BS Jaswal to visit Beijing at the head of a high-level defence delegation just because Jammu and Kashmir is under his area of responsibility annoyed India no ends, forcing it to suspend all defence exchanges with China. The Chinese move was clearly seen by India as an attempt to question the status of Jammu and Kashmir, thereby supporting its ‘all-weather friend’ Pakistan’s position on the state.

China has been issuing visas on separate sheets to Indian nationals from Jammu and Kashmir for the past two years instead of stamping them in their passports. The sources said the two countries were also in discussion on the ‘complicated’ issue of stapling visa for J&K residents and hoped it would be resolved amicably. The sources said the Chinese often complain that the Indian media goes ballistic over even a small issue between India and China.

“The Chinese feel the Indian media goes overboard on any differences between India and China...after all we are two big sovereign countries which can always differ on issues. But it does not warrant portraying a negative picture of the relationship,” they added.

The Chinese also blame the West for ‘outdated’ views and ‘overly exaggerating’ differences between India and China. “Some Western media agencies have hyped the so-called competition between the dragon and elephant and dragon and the tigers and fabricated the prospects for conflicts,” said the website of the ‘People’s Daily’, China’s official party newspaper, in an editorial recently.