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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj off to China next week

Chinese official media warned that New Delhi's close ties with Washington may pose problems for Sino-India relations.

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With the US President Barack Obama's visit riling China, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is travelling to Beijing to sooth nerves. In addition to a joint statement and a Delhi declaration of friendship, India and the US released a document specific to the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean region where maritime disputes between China and other claimant nations are escalating.

Though, Swaraj's visit next week was planned to attend the trilateral meet of foreign ministers of Russia, India and China, a bilateral meeting has been sought with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, for what is believed to soothe the feathers ruffled by the growing India-US bonhomie.

When draft of a the document had come under discussion, an official is understood to have raised objection that it will agitate China, but the prime minister, who was presiding the meeting himself brushed aside the objection.

Both sides in the document affirmed "the importance of safeguarding maritime security and ensuring freedom of navigation and over flight throughout the region, especially in the South China Sea."

President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday received a message from his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who greeted India on its 66th Republic Day. Xi also wrote that China was ready to work with India to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, and build a closer partnership of development.

On the same day, Obama and Modi in a joint statement in an indirect reference to China called for avoiding threat or use of force, and pursue resolution of territorial and maritime disputes through all peaceful means, in accordance with universally recognised principles of international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Chinese official media warned that New Delhi's close ties with Washington may pose problems for Sino-India relations.

"Obama's strategy is quite clear. He wants to split the relations between China and India, as well as India and Russia, in an effort to fulfill his strategy of a 're-balance' in Asia," said state-run Global Times, which is part of the ruling Communist Party of China group of publications.

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