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Fernandes may visit China next week

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE April 16 .The Indian Defence Minister, George Fernandes, is likely to visit China soon, if the current diplomatic indications hold firm.

While no official announcement has been made, it is understood that he may begin his planned visit by the beginning of next week.

If the visit does take place, Mr. Fernandes will not be the first foreign dignitary to travel to China at this time despite the prevalence of SARS there.

The Japanese and South Korean Foreign Ministers held talks with the Chinese leaders in Beijing recently.

The political significance of any visit to Beijing by Mr. Fernandes is that the bitterness in Sino-Indian ties, generally traced to his blunt identification of China as the key strategic factor behind New Delhi's nuclear-weapons-testing in 1998, can now be treated as a bygone irritant.

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