Tourism Minister Ambika Soni has had to cancel her visit to China early next month after the Indian Embassy in Beijing expressed its reluctance to host her. Soni was scheduled to visit the city of Kunming, capital of the southern Yunnan province, in the first week of November to attend the China International Travel Mart (CITM), where India is a Guest of Honour this year along with Greece. CITM is one of the largest professional tourism and travel event in Asia and is organised every year in Kunming and Shanghai alternatively. “The Indian ambassador in China Nirupama Rao has written to the Tourism Secretary that since it was a trade-related event, it may not deserve a ministerial visit from India,” Soni told The Indian Express.Soni, however, said that such a suggestion from an embassy was normal and that she herself had decided not to go even before the ambassador’s letter had come. “I had told my Ministry officials that the Minister’s presence at this event might not be worth it. Our relationship with China in the field of tourism is growing and I do intend to go to China before next February for a more fruitful visit,” she said. However, sources said the real reason behind the Embassy’s reluctance was that it feels it would be too exhausted from the high-profile visits of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi — both of whom would be in China later this week — to host another Union Minister. Mukherjee is leaving for China on Tuesday to attend the trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting of India, China, Russia in Harbin in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, while Sonia Gandhi would be in China from October 25-29 on an invitation by Chinese President Hu Jintao. Soni’s was proposed to go to Kunming on November 2.Soni had attended a similar trade event in Japan only last month, just before the controversy over Archeological Survey of India’s now-withdrawn affidavit in the Sethusamundram project had broke out. “I did not want to go to Japan too but the Indian ambassador in Japan was very keen that I come for the event. So I decided to go,” Soni said.
