India on Monday assured China that there was “broad consensus” across the political spectrum on engaging with Beijing, as both sides held talks laying the groundwork for a series of high-level engagements set to take place in an election year.
Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh said she conveyed to the Chinese leadership that there was “broad continuity in India’s China policy going back to Rajiv Gandhi’s historical visit of 1988.”
“It has always been a forward trajectory. We expect that to continue regardless of what the new dispensation is,” she said following the sixth round of the annual strategic dialogue held with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin.
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“The business of government does not really stop especially at the level of the civil service,” she said. “We like to provide that continuity and I think the Chinese appreciate the fact that we are doing that.”
Mr. Liu told Indian reporters before Monday’s sixth round of the strategic dialogue that China was “confident that to promote China-India friendship is a shared consensus of all political parties in India.”
“So I am confident that whichever party comes to power in India, it will stay committed to friendship and cooperation between the two countries,” he said.
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Ms. Singh said the dialogue had discussed “the length and breadth of the relationship,” from cooperation in Afghanistan, where both countries recognised shared interests, to pushing Indian pharmaceuticals and other exports to bridge the widening $31 billion trade imbalance.
The talks firmed up what officials described as “a packed calendar” of bilateral visits in the coming year, which is being marked as “a year of friendly exchanges.” A highlight could be the first visit by Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping to India.
Mr. Xi has expressed his desire to visit India later this year on what would be his first trip to the country after taking over as President in March 2013, as The Hindu first reported last month. The proposed visit is being seen as reflecting the new Chinese leadership’s intent to take ties forward with the new government in New Delhi that will be in place after the Lok Sabha elections.
Ms. Singh said she also raised India’s long-expressed concerns on Chinese investments in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which the Chinese leadership has made clear will continue despite Indian opposition. China has devoted increasing attention and resources to pushing a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which runs through parts of PoK.
She said liberalising the visa regime was also “on the cards.” An agreement to loosen business and tourist visas for Chinese was set to be confirmed when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Beijing last year, but was shelved temporarily after China issued stapled visas to applicants from Arunachal Pradesh. Ms. Singh said liberalising visas was “certainly required given the kind of partnership we have with China to enable people-to- people contact.”
Ms. Singh, who heads to Moscow on Tuesday, also called on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who met the Foreign Secretary at the unusual hour of 10 p.m. local time as he was tied up with other engagements.