Singh meets Chinese Prez

Beijing, Oct 25 (PTI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday met Chinese President Hu Jintao here to review the entire gamut of bilateral ties and find ways to move forward on pending issues, including the vexed boundary question.

Singh, who arrived here on Thursday after a three-day
visit to Japan, and Hu met on the sidelines of the seventh
Asia-Europe meeting (A.S.E.M.) summit.

The Prime Minister's meeting with Hu, also General
Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, was the
second high-level contact between the leadership of India and
China in a month.

Singh earlier had a meeting with his Chinese counterpart
Wen Jiabao on September 24 on the margins of the U.N. General
Assembly session in New York.

New Delhi acknowledges that the boundary problem is
"complex" and cannot be resolved overnight. "There is no
simple technical fix to this problem," said Foreign Secretary
Shivshankar Menon.

The Prime Minister may use the occasion to clear doubts
in Beijing over the growing Indo-Japanese ties after Singh
signed a landmark security pact with his Japanese counterpart
Taro Aso.

"I have explained on several occasions both in India as
well as in China and abroad that I sincerely believe that
there is no competition between India and China," Singh had
said in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Singh and Hu are also expected to discuss cooperation in
multilateral fora on challenges posed by global economic
turmoil, energy security and climate change. PTI