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Patil’s China Visit:IN SEARCH OF CONVERGING INTERESTS, by Monish Tourangbam,1 June 2010 Print E-mail

Round The World

New Delhi, 1 June 2010

Patil’s China Visit

IN SEARCH OF CONVERGING INTERESTS

By Monish Tourangbam

Research Scholar, School of International Studies, JNU

 

In recent times, India-China diplomatic relations seem to concentrate on a pattern, which is to tone down the areas of differences and amplify the areas of convergences. President Pratibha Patil’s visit was no different. Patil successfully engaged in a well-intended public diplomacy covering the political, economic and cultural aspects of India-China relations. Being the first Indian head of state to visit China in a decade, Patil had made extra efforts to make the trip memorable and fruitful in all matters. Her six-day visit generated a lot of positive steam in China even before she landed in Beijing, with Chinese scholars and the media commenting favourably on the prospects of her official tour.

The President walked the extra mile to drive home the point that she was indeed representing an India that seriously and sincerely wanted to take India-China relations to a new level. According to sources, she got all Chinese names and places written in the Devnagri script in her speeches to ensure she pronounced them properly. A week before the trip commenced, she was given a briefing on China by the External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.

Despite all the differences between India and China as neigbouring countries with an intractable boundary dispute and as growing powers with clash of interests in various areas, the two countries do understand that efforts to cooperate are inevitable. The international system in this globalizing world changes very rapidly and growing economies like India and China with many stakes in different parts of the world need to cooperate as much as possible while competing. 

It is for nothing that the President’s favourite line on India-China ties is “enough space in the world for both countries to fulfill their individual aspirations and prosper”. India and China can ill-afford to miss the super-fast express of globalization by engaging in myopic and retrogressive exchanges. The challenge at hand is to find even a grain of goodwill and polish it to such an extent that it sets an example for collaboration and mutualism in other areas. And the President could not have conducted herself better as the goodwill ambassador from India.

Patil was all praise for the Indian community for their contribution in strengthening Sino-Indian ties, hinting on their responsibility to function as a bridge between the two nations. President Patil during her visit also initiated a major diplomatic milestone that embodies all the good things in a relationship otherwise filled with bad memories and suspicion. Mirroring years of civilizational contact with the Indian mainland through the teachings of Buddhism, the visiting Indian head of state inaugurated the first Indian style Buddhist temple in China. The temple, a joint Sino-Indian effort is located adjacent to the White Horse Buddhist Temple at Luoyang in the Henan province of China.

She also unveiled a statue of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore in a main avenue in Shanghai commemorating the indelible impact that the Indian writer left on the literary landscape of China. The Indian President also lauded the ‘Festival of India’ in China and the Indian participation at the Shanghai Expo 2010 as integral parts of Indian outreach to  China for the better understanding of each others’ culture and ethos.

Besides effectively engaging in one of the most widely covered and positively reviewed public diplomacy by an Indian head of state, she also signed a couple of agreements with the Chinese side. Three bilateral cooperation pacts, including two Memoranda of Understandings (MoUs), were signed after talks between Patil and her Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in the Great Hall of The People in Beijing.

The first agreement was for cooperation on visa application formalities for airline staff of the two countries. The second, a MoU, was signed between Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Indian Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, for cooperation in the field of civil services and the third, another MoU was signed for cooperation in space technology.

Meeting with all top Chinese leaders, including Premier Wen Jiabao and the Chairman of the National People's Congress Wu Bangguo, issues of bilateral, regional and global interest were discussed between the leaders, including the issuance of stapled visas to Kashmiris by China and Beijing's support for India's bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

Regarding India’s aspirations for a permanent seat at the Security Council, China’s response has been vague and guarded at best. China giving its “well rehearsed and pre-recorded” response has become a permanent fixture in India-China talks. Beijing is clear in its support for India’s candidature for a non-permanent seat at the Council but when it comes to a veto-wielding permanent seat, its response is as diplomatic as it gets. The same reply was also played out during the Indian Foreign Minister’s China visit earlier this year.

All that China can manage to say is, “It understands and supports India’s aspirations and desire to play a greater role in the UN especially in the Security Council.” According to reports, this is the same policy line that Beijing has adopted since Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in 2005, also reiterated during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China in 2008, thus indicating the lack of traction and the continuing stalemate in this issue. But, we need not blow critical trumpets at this issue, since sharing and distribution of power has never and will never be an easy and self-initiated decision for major powers in the international system.

The robust economic ties between India and China could provide a major balancing force to the many strains in Sino-Indian relations. But some dark clouds of discord (read the widening India’s trade deficit vis-à-vis China) are hovering and they need to be remedied before torrential rains could spoil the India-China harvest. But as of now, India has managed to secure an assurance from the Chinese side that it will "seriously" address the unviable trade imbalance that gives it a $16 billion surplus, saying that addressing trade balance was part of their long-term strategy.

In an otherwise fruitful presidential trip in entirety, the Chinese managed to show a little fang when it raised the issue of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, seeking reiteration of India's stand that Tibet is a part of China. In response, Patil reiterated that Tibet is an internal part of China and that India will not allow its soil to be used for anti-China activities. But there was nothing odd about China raising this issue and not much should be read out of this. As of now, the Indian leader has given her reply and it should be left at that.

Heated exchanges and rhetoric are routine and usual between India and China-competitors in the regional and global arena with the history of a war that lingers on in memories and in an intractable border dispute. But, we can allow relations to be dictated by these discords and contentions only at the peril of development and long-term mutualism that these two nations cannot afford to forego.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

 

 

 

 

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