The Hindu : National : Wen's trip of great significance: China daily

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 06, 2005

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Wen's trip of great significance: China daily

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. India and China can benefit enormously by making the best use of "each other's rise" as a source of growth for "their own development", the official China Daily said in a commentary days ahead of the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao's arrival in India on a four-day visit on April 9.

"The overall development of Sino-Indian rapport has its own concrete foundation. As neighbours who have each adopted an independent foreign policy and first put forward and advocated the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, both countries have similar views on major regional and international issues," the commentary, posted on the newspaper's website, said.

Both countries shared the desire to contribute to a stable and prosperous Asia. "They also shoulder a common responsibility to push forward the process of building a multi-polar world and democratising international relations," it stated, listing the common approaches of India and China.

"A peaceful international environment and amiable surroundings are crucial for both countries. The convergence of their strategic objectives and interests has served as a catalyst for bringing the two Asian nations closer," the commentary, entitled "India Trip of Great Significance", said.

Space for both

"Competition between the two is inevitable. But there is more than ample space in the world economy for the two fast-growing economies, since the process of development in each country has led to increasing similarities between China and India, and both could benefit enormously by making the best use of each other's rise as a source of growth for their own development."

The choice of April for the Premier's visit to India was symbolic of the increasing significance that China had been attaching to its relations with India. "For it was also in April, 55 years ago, that China and India, the two most populous nations in the world, formally established diplomatic ties."

"Best of terms"

In November 2004, Premier Wen told his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, in Laos, that "despite earlier ups and downs, the two countries were now on the best of terms".

Referring to a brief souring of relations due to New Delhi's nuclear tests in May 1998, the newspaper said that mutual understanding was enhanced and a mechanism for dialogue on security set up in 1999.

"Thanks to efforts made by both sides over the past several years, great strides have been made in improving bilateral relations and the frosty period is being seen as merely a fleeting phase from a historic perspective."

Rapport was quickened in the recent past, especially when the then Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, paid a historic visit to Beijing in June 2003, the first tour of China by an Indian Prime Minister in a decade.

"Threat to neither"

"During his visit, the two nations signed the Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation, a legal document guiding the development of bilateral ties in the new century. This laid a solid foundation for furthering mutual cooperation on all fronts."

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