By IANS,
Hua Hin (Thailand): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flew into this Thai resort Friday night to attend the India-Asean and East Asia summits, but the high point of his engagements will be a meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that is expected to ease tensions between the two Asian giants.
Steering as he does one of the fastest growing economies, Manmohan Singh will be a key participant in the seventh summit between India and the 10-member Association for Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Saturday and also at the fourth East Asia Summit Sunday that involves the Asean nations and six other countries.
Even before he set out from New Delhi, the prime minister set the tone for his programmes by stating that he planned to discuss with Asean leaders several new initiatives to accelerate the wide-ranging cooperation with the grouping. India-Asean trade stood at $48 billion in 2008 and is expected to zoom.
He said the conclusion of the India-Asean Trade-in-Goods Agreement in August this year was a major first step in New Delhi’s objective of creating an India-Asean Regional Trade and Investment Area.
Manmohan Singh proposes to take up the issues of greater economic integration, people-to-people contacts, agriculture, human resource development, education, science and technology, and information and communications technology when he meets Asean leaders separately and collectively.
Asean groups together Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The East Asia Summit, he said, would “provide an opportunity to discuss regional and international issues of common interest, and future direction for community building and cooperation”.
But all eyes are on the meeting between Manmohan Singh and Wen Saturday morning – the first high-level contact between the two most populous countries since relations took a beating during the past one month or so over accusations and counter-accusations mainly centered over their unresolved border dispute.
In an unprecedented phase in India-China relations not seen since 1962 when they fought a war, both Beijing and the official Chinese media have taken an unusually aggressive stance over Arunachal Pradesh, the northeastern Indian state which China claims as its own.
China has criticized Manmohan Singh for visiting Arunachal Pradesh last month and has come out bitterly against the planned November trip to the state by the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in self-imposed exile in India.
New Delhi has also criticized Beijing’s decision to undertake projects in Pakistani Kashmir, saying this would impact negatively on India-China relations. The Chinese military has also been accused of foraying into Indian border areas. This has been denied by Beijing.
Besides meeting Wen, Manmohan Singh will hold bilateral meetings with leaders of six other countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.
Manmohan Singh said that India’s enhanced engagement with the Asean was at the heart of its “Look East” policy initiated in 1992.
Manmohan Singh said that the East Asian Summit would also discuss Asia’s response to the global economic slowdown, food security, energy security and climate change will be important issues of discussion.
The East Asia Summit brings together the Asean countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan and South Korea.
The prime minister expressed the hope that Asean and other countries of East Asia would endorse the proposal to establish the Nalanda University in Bihar as an international institution of excellence in education.