China, India to bridge trade gap

INDIA: China and India’s Premiers agreed Thursday to double bilateral trade to $ 100 billion by 2015, during talks that otherwise showed no apparent progress on a series of key disputes.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh also agreed in a joint communique to push Indian exports to China in an effort to bridge a trade surplus of around 20 billion dollars a year in China’s favour.

The talks came on the second day of Wen’s visit his first to India in five years for which he led a delegation of 400 Chinese business leaders.

Trade between the world’s two fastest-growing major economies totalled 42 billion dollars last year and is expected to reach 60 billion dollars in the current fiscal year to March.

Since arriving in India, Wen’s delegation has struck deals worth 16 billion dollars.

The joint communique made no mention of any breakthrough on a host of sensitive issues that have prevented India-China relations from casting off years of suspicion and mutual distrust.

One constant thorn has been a bitter and seemingly intractable dispute over areas of their common Himalayan border, which triggered a brief but bloody war in 1962.

Thursday’s meeting only managed to reaffirm a commitment to resolving the issue already the subject of 14 rounds of fruitless talks - at “an early date”.

India fears China is becoming more assertive about its territorial claims.

Beijing complained bitterly last year over visits to the northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh - which China claims in full - by Prime Minister Singh and the Dalai Lama.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader has lived in India since fleeing as an uprising against Chinese rule failed in 1959 and his presence in the country is an irritant for Beijing. Police arrested several Tibetan exiles protesting outside the venue of the talks, and at street demonstrations on Wednesday effigies of Wen were burned.

Other sensitive issues include China’s close relations with India’s arch-rival Pakistan and its insistence on issuing special stapled visas for Indian Kashmiris a practice seen as challenging Indian sovereignty over the disputed region.

Briefing reporters, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said these had been raised but with no agreement on how to reach a solution beyond further discussions. China has also been reluctant to back India’s drive for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and Thursday’s communique simply stated its support for India to “play a greater role” at the world body. However, it did outline Beijing’s support for a UN resolution demanding sanctions against the Pakistan-based militant group, Lakshar-e-Taiba, which India blames for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Wen was due to fly to Pakistan at the end of his India visit on Friday.

In a speech on Thursday, Wen said India and China’s size, proximity and growing importance would inevitably throw up challenges.

“We are both big nations, so it’s quite natural we have certain points where we don’t agree,” he said, adding that resolving the border dispute would “require patience”. NEW DELHI, Friday, AFP