By Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, KUNA
New Delhi : India and China will discuss wide-ranging bilateral, regional and global issues, with trade ties and boundary dispute likely to top the agenda of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s three day (Jan 13-15) visit to China. Dr. Manmohan Singh, who leaves for Beijing Saturday night, will be the first Indian prime minister to visit China in five years. Last Indian Premier to have visited China was A B Vajpayee in 2003. “This visit is a part of the high level exchanges between India and China in recent years including those by Premier Wen Jiabao to India in April 2005 and President Hu Jintao to India in November 2006. In other words, the Indian Prime Minister is on a return visit to Beijing,” an Indian External Affairs Ministry official told KUNA here today. “During his visit, the Indian Prime Minister will hold officials talks with Premier Wen Jiabao and will have separate meetings with President Hu Jintao, President of the Peoples Republic of China and Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress of the Peoples Republic of China. For both nations, 2007 was the year of friendship through tourism and strengthening of cooperation in various fields, particularly defence,” the official added. Last month India and China held five-day joint military exercise at Kunming in southwest China’s Yunnan province bordering India, code named “Hand-in-Hand 2007”. China is India’s second largest trading partner. The two countries have ratified an investment promotion and protection agreement and set up a joint study group to identify tariff and non-tariff barriers. Expanding trade and investment ties between the two countries will be another focus area with Dr Manmohan Singh expected to address a business meet. Earlier this week, the Indian cabinet approved five MoUs in fields as diverse as land management, housing, traditional medicine, railways and geosciences, which will be signed during Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit. India’s Foreign Secretary Shiv Sankar Menon has hinted that civilian nuclear cooperation could also be discussed during the visit. China had supplied low enriched uranium in the 1990s to India. India also wants China to play a positive role in the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). “However, we are not expecting any major breakthrough during this visit. India’s basic underlying concerns are yet to be addressed by China. Beijing continues to be intransigent on its claim on India’s Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. It also continues with its illegal occupation over parts of Jammu and Kashmir,” the official stressed. “There has been little progress in several rounds of border negotiations since 2003. Beijing’s apparent reluctance to give up claims over Arunachal Pradesh has blocked a solution. Traditionally it is India that has been accused of lacking imagination in dealing with the complex boundary dispute. In the last few years, India has shown extraordinary flexibility and offering to negotiate on a practical and political basis the final disposition of the Sino-Indian border,” the official claimed. The contentious border issue will be on the top of the agenda when Dr Manmohan Singh hold talks with Chinese leaders. “However, we are not expecting any major outcome,” the official added. Ahead of the visit, India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in an interview to India’s leading English news channel CNN-IBN today said: “Sometimes incursions by China into Indian territory occurs. We immediately take it up. Mechanisms have been established through which we address these types of problems.” “Among India’s other long-standing concerns is China’s involvement in India’s neighbourhood. Beijing’s continuous military supplies to South Asia’s trouble spots Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh as well as Myanmar, has serious security implications for the region, and for India in particular,” the official said.