China's Li Peng in India to put ties on track
China's Li Peng in India to put ties on track
BOMBAY (Reuters): China's parliament chief Li Peng arrived in Bombay on Tuesday, the first stop on a nine-day visit to India which analysts say could help iron out differences between the world's two most populous countries.
Li, China's second-most powerful leader, arrived with a delegation of about 120 people, the chief protocol officer of the government of Maharashtra state told Reuters.
He was due to meet Maharashtra governor P.C. Alexander later on Tuesday. Li will travel from Bombay, India's financial hub, to the capital New Delhi on Thursday morning.
Relations between the two Asian giants, which fought a brief border war in 1962, have been strained since India conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998.
But analysts said China wanted good ties with India and Li's January 9-17 visit showed Beijing recognized India's growing influence in Asia.
"Li Peng's visit shows that the Chinese are practical. They want to put aside the controversies created after India's nuclear weaponization," former Indian foreign secretary J.N. Dixit told Reuters.
"China recognizes India is an important nation and it does not make any sense to have an antagonistic relationship with New Delhi," he said.
Concerns
India's main concern about its relations with China are China's military assistance to Pakistan, a flood of cheap Chinese consumer goods into India and a 40-year-old border dispute.
Li, chairman of China's National People's Congress, is due to meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, leading industrialists and heads of India's booming software sector during his trip.
He will be in the Indian capital from January 11 until January 13 for talks with government officials, business associations, foreign policy experts and lawmakers.
The final leg of his tour will take him to Bangalore, India's information technology hub in the south.
On Monday, politicians from several parties, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, asked New Delhi to use Li's visit to tell China firmly about Indian concern over the flood of Chinese consumer goods and China's military aid to Pakistan.
Industry groups say the entry of Chinese-made goods such as toys, locks, sports shoes and bicycles had hurt Indian manufacturers, at least for the short term.
"It's a transitional phase (coming in of Chinese goods). Our manufacturers will adjust and soon be able to compete," said Gurpal Singh, director of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
"Chinese goods are not only coming into India, but into Southeast Asian countries as well," Singh said. For much of the past 40 years ties between the two countries have been cool.
China defeated India in the brief 1962 border war and the two sides have for decades harbored rival claims to parts of the Kashmir region to India's north and parts of the northeastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
But on the trade front, the situation has improved in recent years. Bilateral trade, worth only $265 million in 1991, when India kicked off its economic reforms, rose to $2.33 billion in the first 10 months of 2000.