By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Jan 11 2001 (IPS)

The arrival here Thursday of senior Chinese leader Li Peng on a week-long Indian tour is said to be another chance to mend fences between the mutually suspicious Asian giants.

Li who began his Indian visit Tuesday in Mumbai, declared in the western port city that he was here to “enhance trust, boost friendship and strengthen cooperation.”

“I am looking forward to an extensive and candid exchange of views with Indian leaders on bilateral relations and other issues of common interest,” added the leader who is ranked number two in the Chinese power hierarchy.

Over the next few days Li is to hold talks with President K.R. Narayanan, a former ambassador to China, and with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the latter’s return from a South-east Asian tour.

Li is the senior most Chinese leader to visit India since the latter’s nuclear tests in May 1998 caused a severe setback to bilateral ties.

“India and China are moving towards a tacit arrangement on legitimisation of the border,” says G.P. Deshpande, China expert and professor of international relations at the Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy here.

Deshpande thinks that both countries are now at a stage where they are “little interested in raising irritants.”

There is no dearth of irritants. Apart from the border disptue, which led to a short bloody war in 1962, New Delhi’s complaints include the transfer of Chinese missile and nuclear technology to Pakistan.

India is also worried about alleged Chinese support to ethnic insurgents in India’s north-eastern border region that borders China.

Beijing has time and again shown displeasure over the presence of the Dalai Lama in India ever since the Tibetan spiritual leader fled across the border in 1959, following a failed Tibetan uprising.

On Wednesday, members of the Tibetan Freedom Movement protested here against the “repression of human rights” in their homeland.

“We want Indian leaders to utilise this opportunity to impress upon Beijing the need to open talks with the Dalai Lama,” said Pema Khando, leader of the movement.

Beijing also refuses to accept the merger of the former north- east Indian protectorate of Sikkim with India following a referendum in the year 1975.

Moreover, China claims some 90,000 sq km of territory in the north-eastern border state of Arunachal Pradesh. India acccuses China of llegally occupying 43,000 sq km of Indian territory in its northern border state of Jammu and Kashmir.

A new strain in ties emerged when India attributed its May 1998 nuclear tests to a perceived security threat from China.

Last year’s flight to India of the Karmapa, potential successor to the Dalai Lama and the dumping of cheap Chinese goods on the Indian market have also troubled bilateral ties .

However, leading foreign policy analyst, C. Raja Mohan thinks Beijing may not be averse to building “greater political cooperation among the three large nations on the vast Eurasian land mass.”

Writing in the leading national daily, ‘The Hindu’, Raja Mohan said there “appeared to be a reassessment in Beijing of India’s economic potential” and its “big power diplomacy which allowed it to overcome international isolation following the May 1998 nuclear tests.”

Li’s visit also comes at a time of uncertainties in U.S. relations with Russia and China that could get complicated with the advent of the new Bush administration in Washington.

In comparison, New Delhi-Washington relations have been on a remarkable upswing ever since U.S. President Bill Clinton’s India tour last year. Russian President Vladmir Putin too was in India last year.

Hong Kong-based foreign policy analyst Harvey Stockwin expects Li’s visit to see a “greater degree of openness in the Sino-India relationship” than before.

However, he adds that Li’s recent “disparaging remarks about India in the Chinese press” show that bilateral tensions exist.

Stockwin found the comments to be in stark contrast to the complimentary comparisons made by India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes in a speech last year when he acknowledged that China was ahead of India in many areas.

It was Fernandes who had then descibed China as India’s “potential threat number one” immeidately before India set off the nuclear test blasts.

It was left to India’s suave Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to offer the olive branch during a visit to Beijing in June 1999.

Singh’s trip led to an important formal agreement to hold an annual strategic dialogue. The first of these took place in Beijing last year.

Media commentators advise New Delhi and Beijing to put aside contentious political issues and work on stepping up business contacts.

But even trade has turned tricky with India complaining about the dumping of cheap Chinese goods, which is threatening Indian industry.

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