By JYOTI MALHOTRA
Beijing, July 20 – As India and China prepare to hold their crucial, third round of talks between the two politically-appointed Special Representatives on the border issue on July 26-27 in New Delhi, Beijing has admitted that ‘‘the process of settling the border will not be smooth’’ and that both sides should be ready to ‘‘expect specific problems’’ in this regard.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Indian journalists in the Foreign Office here, Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang did not refer to the specifics of the previous two rounds that had taken place between the previous BJP government and Beijing, but hinted that the time had now come for both sides to make concessions on this very delicate issue.
‘‘As we settle the border question, the deeper we go, the more problems we will encounter,’’ he said, in answer to a question on when China would be ready to exchange maps with India on the western and eastern sectors on the Line of Actual Control.
At the third round next week, he added, China’s Special Representative Dai Bingguo and his counterpart National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit would have ‘‘an in-depth exchange of views on the guiding principles’’ that were formulated during the first two rounds of talks. The Chinese government is ready to ‘‘facilitate peaceful negotiations to reach a fair and reasonable solution that is acceptable to both countries on the basis of mutual respect and equality,’’ Shen said.
Shorn of the jargon, analysts said that at this third round, the principles of ‘‘give-and-take’’ would likely be debated and a possible framework for a compromise solution on the border issue put into place. The analysts pointed out that if both sides indeed succeeded in arriving at such a framework, last year’s ‘‘Indian concession’’ to the Chinese of accepting that the ‘‘Tibetan Autonomous Region was an integral part’’ of the People’s Republic of China, made during Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing, would not have gone in waste.
But Shen also indicated a quickening Chinese interest in cooperation with SAARC, which he said could be enhanced with greater cooperation with India, but pointedly refused to commit support for India’s candidature in an expanded Security Council. ‘‘We understand India’s wishes to play a bigger and important role in the UN and we admit that we have never publicly supported any such effort by any country,’’ Shen said, adding that the expansion issue was a ‘‘very complicated one’’, and required discussions between the P-5 and the UN General Assembly. Nevertheless, China was ready to ‘‘maintain close contact’’ with India at the UN.
On talks between the Dalai Lama’s envoys and Beijing, Shen said it seemed as if the Dalai Lama had abandoned the idea of Tibetan independence during his international travels, but actually that was not the case. He, then, went on to repeat the standard Chinese formula on the Dalai Lama. That the preconditions for talks with Beijing was that the Tibetan leader recognise both Tibet and Taiwan as an ‘‘inalienable part’’ of China and stop ‘‘splittist’’ activities. ‘‘We hope the Dalai Lama will not abandon his motherland,’’ he said.
The Chinese minister was far gentler with the Karmapa, who escaped from Tibet’s Tsurphu monastery in January 2004 and has been living in Dharamsala ever since. ‘‘We, of course, want to see him return to China. He has also indicated that he would never betray his motherland,’’ he said. ‘‘What we are concerned about is that he will not be manipulated by others,’’ he added, ‘‘but we adopt a very open and flexible attitude towards him.’’
Shen’s comments on border talks seem interesting, as this is the first time that Dai Bingguo, a vice-minister in the Chinese Foreign Office but with close links to the Communist Party of China, will be coming face-to-face with a representative of the Congress party. The last time around Dixit met the Chinese in official capacity was as Foreign Secretary in 1993, when P.V. Narasimha Rao visited Beijing. Shen pointed out that ‘‘though there is now a new government in India,’’ it had indicated to Beijing that it was ready to ‘‘further promote’’ the talks process. Under the circumstances, the Chinese side was ready to with ‘‘the political will to continue to push forward negotiations on the border question and facilitate (its) settlement’’.
