Zhu to visit India later this year

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, JULY 23. Senior officials from India and China will meet next week in Beijing to review progress in the talks to resolve the boundary dispute as well as a range of bilateral, regional and international issues of common interest.

There will be particular focus on finding mutually convenient dates for the long-awaited visit of the Chinese Prime Minister, Mr. Zhu Rongji, to India later this year.

The two sides are said to be looking at dates in the last quarter of this year, most probably in November. Mr. Zhu's trip here this year is likely to be followed by that of the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, to China next year.

The exchange of visits by the two Prime Ministers is likely to complete the normalisation of bilateral relations that went into a deep chill after India's nuclear tests in May 1998 and the harsh Chinese reaction to them.

The Foreign Secretary, Ms. Chokila Iyer, will be heading to Beijing over the weekend to hold the 13th meeting of the Joint Working Group on boundary issues with her Chinese counterpart, a vice-minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The latest round of the JWG follows the recent meeting here of the Experts Group, a bilateral forum which examines in detail various issues involved in the boundary dispute.

At the last two meetings of the EG, which reports to the JWG, the two sides exchanged maps for the first time on the middle sector of their border and moved towards an identification of the disputed segments on maps of similar scale.

In the last couple of years, India has been pressing for a quicker pace in the bilateral effort to delineate the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the long and contested border with China.

The focus of Sino-Indian diplomacy in the recent period has been on the clarification of the LAC, without prejudice to the position of either country on the boundary dispute. The delineation of the LAC would make it easier for the two countries to maintain peace and tranquility on the border, and implement various military confidence building measures that have already been agreed upon.

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