Beijing has warned that its relationship with New Delhi is “very fragile” and can be easily destabilised only days before of a visit by premier Wen Jiabao to India.
Zhang Yan, the Chinese ambassador to India, said on Monday that bilateral relations between two of Asia’s biggest powers were “very fragile, very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair. Therefore, they need special care in the information age.”
“To achieve this, the [Indian] government should provide guidance to the public to avoid a war of words,” he added.
His comments come as India and China try to resolve a decades-long border dispute over the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and to restore balance to a lopsided trading relationship heavily skewed in China’s favour. Trade between the two is worth $60bn annually, but India runs a large trade deficit with China that has been growing steadily for a number of years.
On Wednesday Mr Wen will pay a rare visit to New Delhi, accompanied by a 400-strong trade delegation – one of the largest ever to visit India – amid expectations of striking deals worth as much as $20bn.
In spite of increasing bilateral trade across the Himalayas during the past decade, and co-operation on global issues such as climate change, India and China remain apprehensive about each other’s growing international clout and strengthening economies.
In the face of widespread concerns in India about China’s rise and its future intentions in south Asia, Mr Zhang told Indian business leaders that New Delhi had to prevent “a war of words” in public discourse.
In response, Nirupama Rao, India’s foreign secretary, said China had nothing to fear from India’s “vibrant and noisy democracy”. She said the two countries needed to co-operate in a spirit of “competition and collaboration”.
”Often, our Chinese friends speak of a certain gulf in appreciation of each country vis-a-vis the other, especially when it comes to opinions of that are expressed in the media of the two countries,” Ms Rao said.
“Our Chinese friends are increasingly exposed to the vibrant, I would say, noisy nature of our democracy. The fact that many schools of thought contend, many opinions are expressed which are often at divergence with each other,” she added.
Mr Zhang voiced Beijing’s support for a free-trade agreement between the world’s fastest growing large economies, which he said would be on the agenda of Mr Wen’s visit.
He proposed that “the two neighbouring countries should work together as a world factory and world office”.
“The free trade agreement is the next stage [of India-China relations]. It is our hope that we can start the process,” said Mr Zhang.
India, which is hoping to seal a trade pact with the European Union early next year, is resistant to a free-trade agreement with a neighbour whose cheap goods are already flooding across the border. Anand Sharma, India’s commerce minister, told the Financial Times that India had never promoted the idea of free trade with China.
“The development of diversified trade, tourism and investment co-operation would be crucial for reducing the trade imbalance,” Mr Zhang said. “We want to work with countries to minimise the imbalance because we know that in the long run a big gap in trade is not healthy or sustainable.”
Beijing is also seeking greater access for its financial services sector in India. Mr Zhang said that 10 Indian banks were operating in China, but no Chinese bank had a presence in India.
Chinese authorities have implied that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank, will be given permission soon to start operations in India.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment