China, India to firm up understanding during Krishna`s visit

K J M Varma
Beijing, Mar 29 (PTI) With Copenhagen summit providing
India and China the much-needed turn around in their relations
after a public spat over Arunachal Pradesh, the two sides will
try to use Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna's
April 5 visit here to firm up the understanding and not let
tensions return to haunt their ties.
Highly-placed sources said India and China would focus
on strengthening bilateral issues and discuss about
cooperation on various issues during Krishna's maiden visit
here beginning April five.
They told PTI that the general perception in the two
countries is that the spat through public statements over
Arunachal Pradesh and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai
Lama's visit there have not benefitted either of them.
"There is a fairly strong interest in both the
governments not to see a repeat of the 2009 phase. The two
sides will make use of Krishna's visit to take the
relationship forward and not dwell on past issues," the
sources said.
They also pointed out that Chinese officials feel
Krishna provided a "calming influence" on the bilateral ties
during 2009 and a number of meetings between Krishna and his
Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of several
international meets also helped.
Krishna, who will arrive here on April 5 on a four-day
visit, is scheduled to hold discussions with Yang and may meet
Premier Wen Jiabao.
The cooperation forged by the two countries at the
Copenhagen Climate Summit brought about the much needed "turn
around between the two countries", the sources said. India,
China, South Africa and Brazil hammered out a deal at the
December summit, which was taken note by the conference.
In October last year, China and India were engaged in
a public spat with both issuing statements against each other
over Chinese claims of Arunachal Pradesh.
This year, the two sides also made efforts to iron out
differences on a number of issues including converting the
business visas of over 25,000 Chinese workers to employment
visas.
India by and large managed to convince the Chinese on
the need for visa regime as well as continued India's interest
in Chinese industrial products, the sources said.
During his visit, Krishna is also scheduled to kick
off the celebrations to mark the 60th year of diplomatic
relations and speak at the Chinese Institute of Strategic
Studies on India-China relations. PTI