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By P. S. Suryanarayana
Delivering a speech at the National Defence University in Beijing, Mr. Fernandes, now on a week-long visit to China, said ``the scope for mutually-beneficial opportunities is immense'' if India and China could adopt this approach within the framework of the existing bilateral ``political understanding'' to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border about which there had been ``long -standing differences''. Noting that the differences over the border and ``certain territorial matters'' were being ``pursued by the professionals on both sides'', he did not, however, specify ``the problems extraneous to (the bilateral) relationship''.While Pakistan's suspected role in the terrorist activities in India could, in a technical sense, be seen as a problem extraneous to the Sino-Indian relationship, Mr. Fernandes took care to underline the importance of terrorism as an issue in the diplomatic dialogue between New Delhi and Beijing. He told the audience of Chinese military professionals that ``our shared interests encompass a range of anxieties that include the more recent scourge of terrorism stoked by religious radicalism and deviant state support for such activities''. With the implicit reference to the Pakistan-India context being quite transparent, he emphasised that ``there can be no selective interpretation of this cancer (of terrorism) and the damage it can do to the global body-politic''. Without mentioning either Pakistan by name or the agenda of the terrorists with regard to Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Fernandes said India had conveyed to its ``principal interlocutors'' on the world stage about the untenability of any selective interpretation of terrorism. ``Your leadership is aware of this'', he told the Chinese military experts and turned the spotlight on another issue which had remained a talking point in the Sino-Indian dialogue. He said that ``in (the) like fashion'' of keeping the international community, including China, informed, the Indian authorities ``have expressed our concerns about the transfer of sensitive technology and know-how pertaining to weapons of mass destruction and (about) the manner in which this (transfer) is being used to advance revisionist agendas''. He left it to the Chinese professionals to de-code the ``revisionist agendas''. On India's own nuclear tests, a subject which he had in the past interpreted in a manner that irked the Chinese leaders, Mr. Fernandes said: ``India accepted the full responsibility that devolves upon a state with nuclear weapons with rectitude and restraint as the guiding doctrinal principles that underpin this capability. No-first-use is the operative feature ... though we will not be intimidated or threatened by any form of adventurism''. Mr. Fernandes held talks with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Li Zhaoxing, on a wide range of issues which did not, however, zero in on Pakistan in any specific detail. While China is understood to be generally supportive of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's latest diplomatic offer to hold talks with Islamabad in specified circumstances, the Pakistan question has not at all defined or clouded the Defence Minister's talks in Beijing. The key participants in the delegation-level talks were Ambassador, Shiv Shankar Menon, as also the Defence Secretary, Subir Dutta, and the Vice-Chief of Army Staff, Shantonu Choudhry, from the Indian side, and top Chinese military officials, Yao Xingyuan and Li Yongde besides Liu Fengjun. On a separate front, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in Tokyo today that the Koizumi administration was still ``making realistic efforts to call on ... India and .. Pakistan to join the CTBT.''
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