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| Beijing for peace, development in South Asia | | China's President backs Indo-Pak friendship | |
NEW DELHI, NOV. 22
Unlike his predecesors, the current President of China, Hu Jintao, on Wednesday sent out a clear signal vis-a-vis Beijing's standpoint on the need and relevance of "better ties" between India and Pakistan. China, he made it abundantly clear, welcomed improving relations between nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, India and Pakistan.
"China welcomes and supports improvement in relations between India and Pakistan", Hu Jintao, the first Chinese President to visit India in a decade, said in a keynote address in New Delhi. Hu was scheduled to leave for Islamabad on Thursday after his four-day trip to India, during which the Asian giants pledged to double their trade to 40 billion dollars by 2010.
Relations between China and India have long been strained over Beijing's economic and military support for Pakistan as well as by a festering border row that led to a brief but bloody frontier war in 1962. Hu Jintao said that China wanted peace and development in South Asia, after agreeing in talks with Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to accelerate efforts to find a solution to their border dispute. "China does not seek any selfish gains in South Asia", he said.
New Delhi says Beijing occupies 38,000 square kilometres (14,670 square miles) of Indian territory in Kashmir, while Beijing claims 90,000 square kilometres in Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh. A formal ceasefire line is yet to be established, but the unsettled Himalayan frontier has remained largely peaceful, thanks to agreements signed in 1993 and 1996.
China's President let it be known that Beijing was ready to play a "constructive role" for the promotion of peace in the region. He said that a peaceful and prosperous South Asia was beneficial for both Asia and the world.
While relations between India and China have improved in recent years, New Delhi remains concerned about Beijing's longstanding military and economic support for Pakistan, analysts say. Beijing distrusts what it sees as India's growing closeness to Washington, increased naval assertiveness in the Indian Ocean and its open door to Tibetan refugees, they add.
These analysts seem satisfied with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "bold" presentation of India's standpoint on future of Tawang and other parts of Arunachal Pradesh during his meeting with Hu Jintao. Chinese President was set thinking anew when Manmohan Singh made it abundantly clear that Twang and other parts of Arunachal Pradesh cannot be considered for territory exchange to achieve a boundary settlement.
Manmohan Singh's message to Hu Jintao was lound and clear: Any solution that would involve uprooting setled populations cannot be acceptable to India.
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