India to raise Sino-Pak arms nexus

India and China were big players in their own regions, Qian said, pointing out that the two ancient civilisations really didn’t need to play the role of modern-day antagonists. He insisted that dialogue could resolve any problem that emerged between the two. and that, in fact, the two nations shared no real or fundamental conflict.

The surprisingly conciliatory tenor of Qian’s remarks are being received with considerable relief and appreciation in New Delhi. Even diplomats who defended India’s naming of China as the chief reason for going nuclear last year, have been saying for some time now that Asia’s largest powers must deal with each other as equals, that they have more in common than their differences.

Qian’s discussion with Raghunath was remarkable too for his accent on a multi-polar’ and democratic’ world. He recalled too that it was India and China who gave the world the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence or Panchashila, and that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s trip as External Affairs minister in 1979, had contributed towards the development of bilateral relations.

Diplomats here, pointing to the significance of the Chinese leader’s comments, said they had come in the wake of party visits by the CPI (M) and the Congress, in quick succession, last month.It is clear, too, that Raghunath seems to have been given considerable access by the Chinese foreign office. Besides talks with his counterpart, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Yang Wenchang, Raghunath also met Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan today.

Dates for the JWG had become the barometer of the bilateral relationship, especially since the meeting, held annually since its inception in 1988, was peremptorily cancelled by Beijing last year after New Delhi’s nuclear tests. China reacted angrily by calling India a “hegemonistic” state and the relationship went into a deep spin.

After a long period of silence alternating with diplomatic abuse, both sides finally met over a preparatory meeting in February, setting the ball rolling for the “normalisation” of the relationship. As its name suggests, the JWG is meant for an exchange of views on the contentious border issue, that is, along the Sino-Indian border from Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh. But Ministry of External Affairs sources confirmed that “all issues would be on the table,” including those relating to security and nuclear disarmament.Interestingly, last year’s mutual exchange of angry rhetoric has actually cleared the air on a lot of issues. Defence officials and diplomats say they had begun to feel as if China was “hemming” India in, whether these were slow and silent incursions across the border into Arunachal Pradesh or its refusal to recognise Sikkim as a part of this country.

Raghunath is also likely to strongly put across India’s concerns over Chinese assistance to Pakistan on the nuclear-missile front, as most recently evidenced by the Ghauri-II and Shaheen missile tests. New Delhi’s argument is that Beijing has forced itself into the South Asian security paradigm and that under the circumstances, India’s defence of its security interests is “legitimate.” In fact, New Delhi’s N-tests seem also to have drawn US into a greater understanding of India’s China-related concerns. But while US officials are for the first time sharing assessments about Beijing with Delhi, these officials are still not willing to state their concerns publicly.

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