Sunday, Mar 31, 2002
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By C. Raja Mohan
The Chinese Premier, Zhu Rongji, talking to the visiting External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province, on Saturday. — AP
The substantive decisions taken during Mr. Singh's visit on accelerating the process of demarcation of the Line of Actual Control(LAC), the initiation of the first-ever bilateral dialogue on combating terrorism and a political determination to intensify economic cooperation have raised hopes that Sino-Indian relations are ready to catch a new wind. Briefing reporters after his call on the Chinese Premier, Zhu Rongji, today, Mr. Singh said the framework for a comprehensive dialogue on all issues of mutual concern put in place during his visit could lead to a qualitative transformation of the bilateral relationship. The extraordinary dynamism of New Delhi's diplomacy towards major powers since the nuclear tests of 1998 appears to have finally infected the Sino-Indian relationship that had been a political wasteland for much of the last five decades. Summing up the significance of a number of decisions taken during his talks with the Chinese leadership, Mr. Singh said the only other countries with which India had such a broadbased dialogue architecture are the United States and Russia. Mr. Singh's talks with Mr. Zhu in Tiayuan, capital of the Shanxi province in Western China, focussed on the need to ''aggressively pursue'' the full potential of bilateral economic relations. The Joint Economic Group, already in existence for years, will be activated to achieve this objective. The two sides hope that by the time the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, travels to Beijing at the end of the year, there will be tangible advancement on the economic front. The decision to initiate cooperation on counter-terrorism reflects the changed international context that is nudging India and China to move forward in areas they never engaged each other earlier. Although New Delhi and Beijing cooperate with other powers on counter-terrorism, there were inhibitions in the past on security cooperation between the two countries. Those political inhibitions now appear to have been overcome. Equally important has been the decision during Mr. Singh's trip to put a time-frame on exchanging maps on the Western and Eastern sectors of their disputed border. This exchange is part of the effort to demarcate the LAC that separates the two nations on their long Himalayan boundary. The two sides have already completed the exchange of maps on the middle sector. An early clarification of the LAC would make it easier for both countries to maintain peace and tranquillity on their border. It also eases India's burden in managing the two-front security threat it had to confront all these decades. India's success in a pragmatic management of the complex border dispute with China is also likely to point to a potential way out of the historic stalemate between New Delhi and Islamabad on Jammu and Kashmir. More fundamentally, the decisions taken during Mr. Singh's visit to Beijing reflect a new purposefulness that has begun to animate Sino-Indian ties. The positive personal chemistry that has marked Mr. Singh's talks with the Chinese leaders appears to have reinforced the new spirit of problem solving in Sino-Indian relations.
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