Sino-Indian strategic talks commence in Beijing

   New Delhi: Marking the first ever rendezvous in "Indo-China Friendship Year", Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei are meeting for a second round of strategic talks in Beijing today. According to the official sources the talks will focus on promoting cooperation between the two nations and on sorting out the thorny border issue. Both sides seemed optimistic of the outcome ahead of the talks. The Chinese side has expressed its readiness "to work closely with the Indian side to further expand friendly exchanges, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation, and continuously enrich the contents of the strategic and cooperative partnership between our two countries." The Indian side said that "we would not get bogged down in technicalities. Through the talks, we expect to make progress. We are looking at a package to balance requirements on both sides," adding the aim was "to see if we can come to mutually-acceptable solution" to the boundary issue... Both sides, however, indicated that they were not expecting a "breakthrough" since it was too early to predict a solution to existing prickly issues.

   The talk assumes significance on three counts. Firstly, it will precede the second round of talks between the Special Representatives of the two countries expected in Delhi shortly. Secondly during his two day meeting the Indian Foreign Secretary will brief his Chinese counterpart on the Indo-US nuclear deal since Beijing is still opposed to recognising India as a nuclear power and views the Indo-US deal as a retrograde step in global nuclear disarmament. Last but not the least, the talks are being seen under the parameter of growing engagement between India and Japan, a traditional rival of China with whom relations have always been edgy. China had earlier backed off from supporting India's claim for being a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since it ties with Japan. This second round of talks comes almost a year after the first round was held in New Delhi on January 24, 2005. The talks then were termed as 'successful' though no big announcement was made. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India in April last year, New Delhi, both agreed to take the relations to a strategic levels.

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