New Delhi, April 12 – China’s premier wound up a visit to India on Tuesday having made progress on a border row, boosted trade and energy cooperation, and with a vow to make the world’s fastest growing economies partners rather than rivals.
“India, China are brothers,” China’s Wen Jiabao told reporters on what he described as a historic visit. “We have taken this relationship to a new level.”
Later, he told students at one of India’s top engineering colleges that visiting India was like returning to his “native soil” and recalled centuries-old ties between the two ancient civilisations.
“Some people describe China and India as competitors. I beg to disagree,” Wen told the students. “China and India are friendly neighbours and cooperative partners. They are not rivals, still less adversaries.”
Wen signed an agreement with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday on the “guiding principles” to resolve a decades-old dispute over their 3,500 km (2,200 mile) Himalayan border, which brought the two sides to war in 1962.
Under the deal, the two sides agreed to respect settled populations and each other’s security concerns while continuing to negotiate a final settlement.
Observers said they are inching towards a deal to recognise the status quo, softening public opinion up slowly to a redrawing of maps — something deeply sensitive in India.
That would mean China relinquishing its claim to 90,000 square km (35,000 square miles) of territory in India’s northeast but retaining control of Aksai Chin, an icy and uninhabited slice of land on the Tibetan plateau that Beijing seized from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1962.
LONG WAY TO GO
Wen said China was keen to maintain peace and develop trade along the border, which still sees occasional skirmishes.
“As long as we have sincerity and patience, as long as we persevere in this effort, we will be able to build the China-India boundary into a boundary of peace and friendship,” he said.
But as the nuclear powers mark 55 years of diplomatic ties this year, analysts said there was still a long way to go in the border dispute, as well as in building trust between the huge communist state and the world’s largest democracy.
Wen presented Singh with a new Chinese map showing, for the first time, the tiny and remote Himalayan region of Sikkim as part of India.
The two powers, whose demand for energy has stretched global supply, also agreed to cooperate in the search for new supplies to avoid a bidding war that would drive prices up.
But another source of potential difficulty remains.
While China appeared to support India’s bid for a UN Security Council seat, its endorsement was not as strong as India was seeking, officials said, and did not specifically support a veto right for New Delhi.
“We fully understand and support India’s aspiration to play an even bigger role in international affairs, including in the United Nations,” Wen said.
