By IANS
New Delhi : Signalling the strengthening of Sino-Indian ties, Congress president Sonia Gandhi Thursday leaves for a five-day visit to China during which she is scheduled to meet President Hu Jintao, who has just been named head of the ruling party for a second term.
Gandhi, who visits Beijing ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip later this year, will be the first foreign leader to meet Hu after he was Sunday named party general secretary and head of the Standing Committee of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Politburo, the most powerful political body in China.
Hu had invited Gandhi during his India visit last year.
“The Chinese communist party has clarified that it appreciates the role of the Congress party in building up a good relationship between the two countries. Its invitation to the Congress president was an endorsement of it,” said a Congress secretary who did not want to be named.
He added that the CPC had always “held the Gandhi family in high regard”. The CPC had also sent a congratulatory message when Gandhi’s son Rahul was elected as a party general secretary last month.
Though there is no official confirmation, Congress sources said Rahul would accompany his mother on the trip. Sonia Gandhi, who will return Oct 30, would also have Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma on her team.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee also leaves for China Tuesday to attend the trilateral – India, China and Russia – foreign ministers’ meeting in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang province.
The visits come in the wake of reports suggesting that India and China were close to a breakthrough in their bilateral dialogue covering a range of issues – including the border dispute, tensions over Indo-US nuclear deal and New Delhi’s case for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
While announcing Gandhi’s visit, Zhang Zhijun, deputy head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, was quoted as saying that it would enhance “the mutual understanding and friendship between the leaders of two parties”.