By Jehangir S. Pocha, Globe Correspondent | April 13, 2005
NEW DELHI -- The series of agreements and diplomatic warmth generated by the four-day visit to India of Premier Wen Jiabao of China are ushering in a new era in Chinese-Indian ties that will have a major impact on Asia and the world, leaders from both governments say.
Foremost in the raft of 11 agreements overseen by Wen and his counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, is a clear indication that Beijing would support India's inclusion into an expanded United Nations Security Council.
'' China would welcome India's emergence in the UN Security Council," Wen was reported to have told Singh during their meeting here yesterday. Though the comment was not repeated in an official joint statement issued later and is at odds with an earlier move by both China and the United States to tread carefully on the issue, it made headlines here.
Occurring just a day after the two sides agreed to a new set of guiding principles on how to settle the boundary dispute that has bedeviled relations between the two countries since 1958, Wen's comment revealed how far China and India have traveled since 1998, when then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had referred to China as India's No. 1 enemy.
Singh struck a very different note after his meeting with Wen, agreeing to improve military ties between the two nations and saying that through close cooperation, ''India and China can together reshape the world order."
That change-the-world theme was also maintained by Wen, who cast aside a prepared speech to tell a gathering of Indian business leaders that increased understanding and trade between China and India is essential to ''peace and prosperity in the world" and to the creation of a new ''Asian century."
Part of the substance behind this soaring rhetoric is a comprehensive five-year plan both sides signed on Monday. Termed a strategic cooperation agreement, it is aimed at increasing Chinese-Indian cooperation in areas as diverse as finance, education, science, technology, tourism, and civil aviation. For example, flights between the two countries will increase from seven to 42 per week.
Trade between the two countries has increased dramatically in recent years, from $100 million in 1994 to $13.6 billion last year. As a result of the current initiatives, it ''is expected to reach $30 billion by 2010," said Kamal Nath, India's minister of commerce and industry.
Significantly, China and India, which are the world's most populous countries and its two fastest growing economies, have also agreed to begin a feasibility study on establishing a bilateral free trade agreement.
But China and India still face significant obstacles as they seek warmer ties. Almost 50 years after India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reluctantly gave the Dalai Lama refuge in India when he fled invading Chinese forces, Tibet remains a potent human and political fissure between the countries.
In Bangalore, while Wen was visiting the Indian Institute of Sciences, a Tibetan exile evaded the premier's security detail to clamber atop the colonial-era tower of the institute and wave the Tibetan flag as he peppered the Chinese delegation below with pamphlets.
In New Delhi, police had to haul away scores of Tibetan protesters who had gathered outside the Chinese embassy.
Though Wen tried in his speeches to present China as a nation overhauling not only its economy but also its politics, many in India remain skeptical, and memories of India's 1962 border war with China have not been totally erased from the collective memory of either nation.
''Serious issues between India and China remain, especially amongst the security crowd," said Rahul Bedi, New Delhi-based correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly. ''You can't just wish those away."
Significantly, India chose the day just before Wen arrived to announce that it would begin constructing its first indigenously designed and built aircraft carrier. Over the past two weeks New Delhi has been actively -- and very publicly -- considering a US offer to equip the Indian Air Force with F-16 and F-18 fighter jets.
In China, too, wariness of India's military intent, though waning, is still significant.
Beijing has been lobbying the European Union to lift the arms embargo levied against China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Beijing wants to upgrade its fleet of Russian Su-30 fighters with advanced European avionics so they can compete with India's Su-30s, which are already equipped with cutting-edge French technology, Bedi said.
Both Wen and Singh have asserted that the increasing warmth between China and India is based on commonalities.
But there's also no doubt both the United States and Russia feature prominently in China's and India's view of each other, albeit in very different ways.
'' China has started taking India seriously in large part because of India's growing military ties with the US," Bedi said. ''That's made the Chinese very nervous and now they're wooing India too."
Indian and Chinese specialists meanwhile brush aside the idea, put forward by some Russian analysts, that Russia, India, and China could form a strategic triangle to challenge the United States.
''China and India both realize they need the uniquely stabilizing role the US plays in the world to continue -- at least for now," said Jin Linbo, director of Asian Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing
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