The Hindu : Sino-Indian dialogue catches world's eye

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 28, 2003

International

International - India & World

Sino-Indian dialogue catches world's eye

By P. S. Suryanarayana

BEIJING June 27. While China has portrayed its latest summit-level dialogue with India here as a major bilateral event, the international community has evinced considerable interest in the outcome of the new Sino-Indian exchanges.

The curiosity factor, which amounts to an assessment of the strategic implications of the Sino-Indian rapport for global politics, is quite high insofar as the major Western powers are concerned, diplomatic enquiries here indicate.On a particularly critical aspect of current international concerns — post-Saddam Iraq under U.S. occupation — India and China have not expressed any common viewpoint.

It is understood that the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Chinese leaders have not really zeroed in their focus on Washington'¦s independent exchange of views with India over the choices before it regarding the U.S. suggestion that New Delhi send troops for ``stabilisation" duties in Iraq.China is certainly known to watch with interest any signs of an upward trend in the U.S.-India strategic engagement.

However, authoritative Chinese sources have told this correspondent that Beijing is not apprehensive of being caught in the web of any Indo-American project that might be aimed at containing China.The farthest that India and China have gone in formulating a stand on the issue of re-fashioning the current global system is to speak of the "importance" of their "respective roles", not a joint endeavour as such, in bringing a new international political-economic order into being.

Of considerable relevance to the international community are two issues about India's status — New Delhi's nuclear weapons and its aspiration to become a full-fledged permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

In cyberspace imagery, the latest Sino-Indian summit has not resulted in a firm Chinese position, one way or another, on the virtual reality of India as a nuclear power outside the framework of the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Significantly, in this context, India and China have now formulated their preference for "equal security for all countries at progressively lower levels of armament".

The two have pronounced themselves in favour of "nuclear disarmament and (the) elimination of nuclear weapons" as goals that could be attained through "multilateral negotiations".

Of interest to the major powers is the Sino-Indian opposition to the introduction of weapons, including nuclear arms, in outer space and to the ``use or (the) threat of (deploying) force against space-based objects".

As outer space is reckoned to be the next frontier in the realm of international competition for power and pride, the Sino-Indian opposition to the weaponisation of space is considered important. China and India have, therefore, underlined their support for peaceful uses of space technology.

On India's credentials for veto-empowered permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council, China has not committed itself, at this stage, to supporting New Delhi's candidature. China's position on this issue will be crucial at the appropriate time.

With China and India beginning to exude confidence about their future ties, despite the backlog of bilateral concerns, two other aspects of their "Declaration on Principles for Relations" have attracted attention on the international circuit. These aspects relate to the Sino-Indian pledge about their "equality" and their "sensitivity for each other's concerns".

A related formula is that India and China "are not a threat to each other" and that their new bonhomie is "not targeted at any third country".

With China and India stating that their new goodwill for each other "does not affect either country's existing friendly relations and cooperation with other countries", no seismic shift in regional or global politics is promised by either New Delhi or Beijing.

However, the international community has begun to watch if the fault lines on the Sino-Indian strategic front could yet be set right instead of being papered over.

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Sino-Indian dialogue catches world's eye