Shiv Shankar Menon says India, China have 'full spectrum relationship'

India and China have transformed their once "adversarial relationship" to that of a "full spectrum" one and there was no reason to doubt the neighbours' ability to solve differences in the future, National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon said today.

"We have come a long way from the days of sixties and early seventies when it was an adversarial relationship, dominated by a single issue and when communication between the two states and societies was minimal", Menon said.

In a prepared speech, read out at a seminar on "India & China: The Way Forward", Menon said, today both had a "full spectrum relationship which includes elements of cooperation and competition and which is significant not only for the two countries but for the region and the world."

The moving forward in relationship was possible due to the leadership in either country recognising the fact that it was in their interest to do so and that the "costs of sterile confrontation" were borne by both and "benefited others."

Besides, such transformation was also possible by the fact that they were engaged in mammoth tasks of domestic transformation which must take priority over external entanglements and complications, Menon said.

Recalling visits of former Prime Ministers AB Vajpayee (as then Foreign Minister) and Rajiv Gandhi in 1979 and 1988, he said these resulted in 'relatively peaceful' border and progress had been made in discussions on boundary settlement.

"The rest of the relationship has developed rapidly while we address the boundary question. Our trading economic relationship is one of the most important that India has", he said, adding, New Delhi and China worked together on several international issues and find that their interests 'coincide' on several global matters.

On the boundary dispute, Menon said, he was not 'minimising' the issue. "We are still divided by the world's largest boundary dispute in terms of area but have shown an ability to manage differences".

"In 2005, we agreed the Guiding Principles and Political Parameters for a boundary settlement. We are now engaged in the second stage of a three-stage process, namely, agreeing a Framework for a boundary settlement", he said.

"The third stage will be translating the Principles and the Framework into an actual and delineated and demarcated boundary", the National Security Adviser said.

The growing relationship throws up issues and the one with the most immediate significance was the very nature of bilateral economic relationship, he said.

The two countries have begun to address trade imbalance and the limited Indian export basket in a Strategic Economic Dialogue which had shown some "useful results in terms of future cooperation," Menon noted.

"Both sides have also begun to use defence diplomacy but this is a relatively underdeveloped part of the relationship that needs considerable work", he said.

"But the important point is that we have shown an ability to manage differences in the past and that there is no reason to doubt our ability to do so in the future. To argue otherwise suggests a lack of self-confidence which I find unjustified by our past history," Menon added.