India, China Close to Agreement on Peace and Tranquility along Border

BALI (INDONESIA) - (NNN-AGENCIES) -- Notwithstanding reports of troop’s build-up on both sides of the international border, India and China are close to firming up a mechanism for maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border.

The Special Representatives of both the countries are meeting in New Delhi later this month to fine-tune the mechanism, official sources confirmed.

Amidst the growing bonhomie, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are meeting Saturday and several contentious issues are expected to be discussed. They include the support to Indian insurgent groups (IIGs), flow of illegal arms into the North-east, etc. The Indian officials though were treading very cautiously on the issues.

The Prime Minister meanwhile arrived here to a rousing welcome this evening. Red carpets were rolled out and a Senior Minister of Indonesia was at hand to receive him. This holiday township, favourite among western tourists, glittered as the world leaders started arriving.

Meanwhile, officials have downplayed reports of China’s role in supply of weapons to Indian insurgent groups like the Paresh Baruah faction of outlawed ULFA, NSCN and the PLA, besides the Maoists, by pointing out that India is yet to trace the smoking gun, implying that Beijing’s direct involvement is yet to be ascertained.

Yesterday, spokesman of Ministry of External Affairs, Vishnu Prakash, had said that the issues of support to Indian insurgent groups and flow of weapons into the North-east have been raised on several occasions with the China in the past.

He was responding to questions on free run enjoyed by Paresh Baruah in China. New Delhi’s latest headache is the alleged Chinese support to Maoists. However, sources maintained that India is yet to be convinced about China directly supporting the insurgents.

All militant outfits including the Maoists would like us to believe that they have China’s support, but we are yet to see a smoking gun,” said the official. The official though admitted that most of the IIGs in the North-east use Chinese weapons.

Today, China is the manufacturer of cheapest arms in the world, he said, adding that there are weapons flowing all over the place. But to say that China is supplying them directly is difficult to establish, he said.

Meanwhile, New Delhi and Beijing are inching closer to working out a mechanism to defuse the tension along the international border. National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and Vice-Premier Dia Bingao are meeting late in November to finalise the deal.

Sources said that India and China engaged themselves in settling the boundary row and proposed to resolve the thorny issue in three phases. Currently, two more phases are to go.

The two countries agreed to first finalise the guidelines, finalise the mechanism to maintain peace and tranquillity, work out the political parameters and then to fix the framework and then work towards applying the framework.

Admitting that the current phase was the toughest, sources claimed that despite reports of troops build-up on both sides of the border, Chinese intrusions into India has actually declined during the last couple of years.

Meanwhile, the Look East Policy is set to be in focus yet again, when the Prime Minister engages with the ASEAN countries.

“Partnership with ASEAN is an essential component of our Look East Policy,” said Dr Singh.

“The level of our engagement with the ASEAN as a group and with individual ASEAN member states has gone up qualitatively in the last few years. This is reflected in the areas of trade and investments, capacity building, connectivity, people-to-people and institutional linkages. We have agreed upon an ambitious India-ASEAN Plan of Action for 2010-2015,” The Prime Minister said, adding that he would review the implementation of the plan of action with ASEAN leaders.

India would be hosting a special ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in India next year.

“We are in the process of planning a number of events as part of the celebrations next year including the Delhi Dialogue-IV in February 2012, a car rally from Indonesia to India in November-December 2012, a sail training ship expedition along the monsoon trade winds route from September 2012 to May 2013, and an intensive year-long calendar of cultural activities, Secretary (East), Sanjay Singh said.

The Trade-in-Goods Agreement between India and ASEAN is now fully functional. “We are continuing efforts to conclude the Services-and-Investment Agreements which will complement the Trade-in-Goods Agreement.

The total trade between India and ASEAN has increased by 30 per cent in last fiscal reaching around USD 58 billion. We expect that the trade target of USD 70 billion by 2012, announced by the Prime Minister at the Seventh ASEAN-India Summit in Hua Hin, Thailand in 2009, would be realised.

The Second ASEAN-India Business Fair is planned to be held in December 2012, together with the ASEAN-India Business Summit and ASEAN-India Business Council. We are looking at encouraging collaborations in the MSME sectors, he said. -- NNN-AGENCIES