Another Sino-Indian bid to generate trust

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, MAY 16. India and China will hold high-level political consultations tomorrow amid a conscious diplomatic effort by the two governments to lend some transparency to their political moves and reassure each other of their peaceful intentions.

The visiting Chinese leader, Mr. Li Changchun, will hold substantive talks with the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, tomorrow and also call on the President, Mr. K. R. Narayanan, during his stay in the capital.

Mr. Li, a member of the Chinese Communist Party politburo and party secretary in the prosperous Guangdong province, is here as part of the continuing high-level engagement between the two governments.

That Mr. Li is spending a full week here barely four months after another senior Chinese leader, Mr. Li Peng, came on an extended tour of India is not going unnoticed in the diplomatic community here.

It is also not be a coincidence perhaps that Mr. Li is coming at a time when the Chinese Prime Minister, Mr. Zhu Rongji, is touring Pakistan and other subcontinental neighbours.

Diplomatic sources here say the timing of these visits may be part of a careful balancing act by Beijing between India and Pakistan. Mr. Zhu is expected to come to India on a stand- alone visit later in the year.

Throughout his engagements in Pakistan, Mr. Zhu sought to avoid stating anything that would offend the sentiments of the Indian side either on Kashmir or on the nature of Beijing's relations with Islamabad.

In an important diplomatic gesture, Beijing kept India fully in the picture on Mr. Zhu's visit to Pakistan and the kind of formulations he was to make there, so that there would be no room for any misperception in India.

India, too, is expected to brief the Chinese side on its own recent engagements with the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Igor Ivanov, and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Richard Armitage, through diplomatic channels, particularly on the question of American proposals for a new security framework.

Although China is a strident critic of America's plans for missile defences and India has welcomed certain elements of the initiative by the U.S. President, Mr. George Bush, the two sides are determined to maintain an open political dialogue on the subject.

Given the huge burden of past misperceptions, New Delhi and Beijing are aware of the importance of generating trust and mutual confidence through an honest discussion of real political differences where they exist.

The Sino-Indian political divergence over missile defences, informed sources here say, is unlikely to cast a shadow over the agreement between the two sides to work for a rapid upgradation of bilateral relations across a broad front.

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