FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

By M.R. Josse

LI PENG, Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, is currently (January 9-17, 2001) on an official visit to India at the joint invitation of Indian Vice-President, Krishna Kant, and Lok Sabha Speaker, Balayogi.

POSITIVE: Li, who is positioned second in China’s power hierarchy, is the highest ranking Chinese leader to visit India after Sino-Indian relations plummeted in the wake of India’s May 1998 nuclear tests and her justification of the same on grounds of a threat perception from China.

His visit is also timed after that to China last year of Indian President K.R. Narayanan which followed a fence-mending dash a year earlier by India’s External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh.

As per reports emanating from the Indian capital, Li’s excursion is expected to pave the way for an official mission to India by Premier Zhu later this year (at which time, according to other informed sources, he is expected to visit Nepal and Pakistan, among other South Asian countries).

And what is more is that Premier Zhu’s projected visit to India later this year is expected to lead, in time, to an official visit to China by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

According to Indian media reports, the Li visit is "aimed at keeping up the momentum of close relations and high-ranking visits" between the two Asian giants when they are "swinging into action to put relations on the fast track."

In that connection it is being recalled that Li visited India way back in the early 1990s, as China’s premier. so also that he was the prime minister when the ‘first breakthrough" in India-China ties took place: to wit, when his Indian counterpart, Rajiv Gandhi, paid an official visit to China in 1988.

What was also being underscored in the Indian media on the eve of the Li visit was that, in August 1993, Li was prime minister when an agreement between India and China was formalised on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) of the Sino-Indian border.

Furthermore, it was being pointed out that although the Sino-Indian border dispute has still not been resolved, for the first time in November last year, "a small step forward in the border dispute was taken when maps of the middle sector were exchanged," (Times of India (TOI) 4 January 2001).

Indeed, that very same newspaper report had it that "there are many who want the process to be accelerated so that the border question can be settled once and for all" there are others who "feel things are moving much too slowly."

NEGATIVE: One is given to understand that "senior officials of both sides" say that even with the best political will a resolution of the complicated boundary issue can take "years".

One area where some visible progress can be expected is in the area of bilateral trade which, as per the TOI report quoted earlier, has increased from $265 million in 1991 to $1.9 billion in 1999.

As per India’s minister of state for commerce and industry, Omar, Abdullah, "India is now among China’s top 20 trading partners and should work towards improving the present level of trade and investments in the form of joint ventures."

So much for the positive side of the ledger. On the less glowing dimension of Sino-Indian relations one can hardly miss reading. periodically, accounts in the Indian media suggesting that China is still up to mischief as far as India is concerned.

Indeed, TOI has not too long ago charged "China breachers trust, builds roads on Indian side of Aksai Chin" (TOI, 20 November 2000) leading one correspondent to describe it as "not only shocking but also very disturbing" (TOI, 29, November 2000).

He thus concluded: "It will be fatal for India to ignore China’s misbehaviour, especially since it is rapidly building its nuclear capability. If events in the past are anything to go by, China, cannot be trusted even in its sleep."

Although there are no reports in the Indian press about China’s version to that and related accounts, that considerable suspicions still hobble Sino-Indian relations is very clear.

One specific instances may be cited in that connection. It concerns China’s decision in December last year not to send a warship to the first-ever International Fleet Review being organised by the Indian Navy next month, after earlier having indicated its inclination to participate, (TOI, 7 December 2000).

TOI’s M.D. Nalapat reacted angrily (TOI, 30 December 2000) to that decision charging, inter alia, that a Pakistan "veto" prompted China to reject Indian’s invitation. Nalapat then quoted a "senior officer in the armed forces" as saying that "the fact is that China is unwilling to abandon its linkage with Pakistan’s aggressive posture against India and is continuing to see itself as a reliable ‘rear’ area for that country."

DUMPING, ETC: Suspicions over strategic issues apart, the economic sector, too, is not completely free from problems. Indeed, as much was underscored last month over alleged "dumping" of Chinese goods in India, some of it from Nepal.

That led to New Delhi’s investigation against alleged dumping of toys, batteries and sport shoes by China following widespread concern that cheap Chinese imports were harming domestic firms.

On the other hand, it also led Chinese Ambassador to India, Zhou Gang, rejecting as "completely groundless" such charges and his observation in a newspaper interview that ‘’boycotting Chinese goods will prove detrimental to the interests of both sides."

Overall, it is thus difficulties to see how Sino-Indian ties can move into the "fast track" any time soon. As with a supertanker, a U-turn cannot be quickly executed. That is not to say that advances will be possible on some limited fronts. Everything considered, whatever progress is made can only be gradual.

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