NEW DELHI – India’s government will have its first top-level contact with China since taking office in May, when a new round of talks on their dragging border dispute starts Monday, but experts warn against high expectations.
The discussions between National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit and his Chinese counterpart, Dai Bingguo, will be the third round since June last year, when the two sides appointed special representatives during a historic trip to China by then Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Indian officials appeared cautious on the eve of the New Delhi talks, which are scheduled to last two days.
“A new dispensation in New Delhi does not mean that the two sides will start afresh, but the reality is that Mr Dai will have to deal with a new special representative,” a senior foreign ministry official said.
Dai, currently vice foreign minister, first met Dixit when the Indian official visited China in 1993 as then foreign secretary.
“And in this light the two sides are likely to explore new areas for a convergence of views,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.
Earlier this month, China said the upcoming talks, the second since January, were aimed at “finding the guiding principles” for a solution to the border row, which remains unresolved despite 10 rounds of Sino-Indian talks since 1988 between junior officials.
The world’s two most populous countries fought a brief but bitter border war in 1962 and have never demarcated an official border.
India accuses China of occupying 38,000 square kilometres of territory in Kashmir while Beijing lays claim to 90,000 square kilometres — all of Arunachal Pradesh state, the scene of the war between the two.
During Vajpayee’s talks in Beijing, the two sides agreed to reopen the Nathu La Pass between Chinese-ruled Tibet and Sikkim, a former protectorate which New Delhi annexed in 1975.
India interprets the pact on the Nathu La Pass as the first, if tacit, recognition by China of Sikkim as an Indian state. On its part, India, slightly shifting its stance, described Tibet as an integral territory of China.
Experts interpreted the Chinese statement as a warning against high expectations from the upcoming talks.
“When they talk of ‘guiding principles’ it interprets as: “Don’t expect the problem to be solved in one go’,” said Ashwani Kumar Roy, an Indian expert on Sino-Indian relations.
“Both sides, especially the Chinese, want to discount any possibility of high expectations but it is a positive sign as they will be exploring a roadmap for the future talks,” said Roy, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“This meeting will be a testing of the waters particularly by China as India has a new government and Dixit is seen as a hawk who does not like to compromise on Indian interests,” Roy said.
The Tibetan government-in-exile, based in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, warned that the Sino-Indian talks would hit roadblocks if the two sides did not address the issue of independence for the Tibetan homeland.
“The issue of Tibet has to come. If the issue of Tibet is resolved, the border dispute between the two countries can be solved,” Tibetan government spokesman Sonam Norbu Dagpo told AFP in Dharamsala.
The more militant Tibetan Youth Congress called for a scrapping of the upcoming meeting.
“Border talks between India and China are not legitimate and if references are to be made, then Tibet has to be involved,” Congress president Kalsang Phuntsok said, arguing that the Sino-Indian borders did not exist until Tibet’s 1949 annexation by China.
