Sikkim falls off China yearbook

India and China are taking small but significant steps to wards building confidence, with the Chinese foreign ministry ordering the 8216;...

India and China are taking small but significant steps to wards building confidence, with the Chinese foreign ministry ordering the 8216;8216;removal8217;8217; of Sikkim from its official yearbook, printed around March, and both sides agreeing on third round of talks on the boundary issue, to be held next month.

Diplomatic sources here said the two Special Representatives on the boundary talks, Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra and Chinese Senior vice-minister Dai Bingguo, agreed to carry forward their political dialogue in Delhi in March, notwithstanding the fact that election process in India would then be in full swing.

Significantly, both Mishra and Dai are said to have in principle agreed to reach some conclusions on the guidelines and parameters of the boundary settlement, even before Chinese premier Wen Jiabao visits India later this year.

While both sides continue to maintain silence on the quality and content of the talks, they said the removal of Sikkim as an independent state from the Chinese yearbook constitutes the second step in the process agreed upon when PM Vajpayee visited China last summer. The first was to delete the Sikkim mention from the Chinese foreign ministry website in October. The last step in the process will occur when Beijing changes its maps in accordance with those printed by cartographers worldwide.

Mishra, who went to Beijing for the second round of talks in January 8212; only days after he returned from the India-Pakistan summit in Islamabad 8212; was also hosted by Dai in his home city of Guiyang in Guizhou province.

As they took a boatride down the local river, went sightseeing to Buddhist temples and checked out underground grottoes in the area, the ambience is believed to have helped prolong their conversations in 8216;8216;mutually advantageous directions8217;8217;, the sources said.

The diplomatic sources also pointed to recent 8216;8216;signals8217;8217; that indicated a thaw in bilateral relations. Such as the broadcast by the government-owned Chinese television, of Chinese ambassador to India Hua Junduo8217;s New Year party in the third week of January it was broadcast over and over again before that of France, as well as telecast by CCTV of Indian cultural performances.