All sound, little substance in China Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India was devoid of any commitment on thorny political issues. While both sides made a public posturing of friendship, the tension between the two over sensitive issues like the stapled visa was palpable.

China evaded any serious political commitment on terrorism emanating from Pakistan, the dam over river Brahmaputra in China and the boundary dispute. The talks focused mainly on deepening bilateral economic ties.

Wen raised the stapled visa issue before prime minister Manmohan Singh could do so, but he didn’t give any assurance.

He left it for consultations between the two countries. In fact, he did not make any announcement on anything, leaving the foreign ministers to look into “all pending issues”.

“The Chinese premier took the stapled visa issue himself and said that China views the issue very seriously. He suggested that officials from both sides should have in-depth consultations so that the issue can be resolved satisfactorily,” foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said.

She agreed that it was for China to take corrective measures rather than asking India to sort out the issue.

China started issuing stapled visas to residents from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) a couple of years ago. India feels the act amounts to questioning the state’s integration with the rest of the country.

Since then, it has put the brakes on high-level defence exchanges and all joint military exercises on hold. The last one slotted for December 2010.

Interestingly, what can be interpreted as retaliation to China not agreeing to resolve the stapled visa issue, India dropped the mention of ‘One China’ policy in its joint communique this time. It was there in the last three communiques.

In fact, except for Afghanistan, there was no firm commitment by China on resolving any of the other issues that India wanted it to address, particularly on terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

“India expressed its concerns on terrorist activities emanating from the Pakistani soil. We wanted that groups pursuing anti-India agenda should be stopped from doing so. The Chinese premier was given a clear understanding that till the time Pakistan doesn’t stop such activities, peace will suffer,” Rao said.

India was not satisfied on the Brahmaputra dam front too. Rao said the Chinese premier assured that the run of the river project was not designed to affect the interest of people living in the lower reaches. Wen said any development on the dam would be taken after taking into account the interests of the people living in the lower reaches.

Despite the countries signing 48 MoUs worth $16 billion in business, India insisted on more market access from China. The foreign secretary said there was a “big imbalance” in the trade between the two countries and India’s trade deficit was growing.

“The market trade imbalance was candidly discussed. We said we would like more market access. We want our pharma, agricultural commodities and IT services to come to China,” Rao said. While China is India’s largest trading partner, the flow of goods is heavily towards Chinese imports than Indian exports.

Even though Wen and Singh agreed to work to increase trade between the two countries from $60 billion a year to $100 billion by 2015 and reduce the trade gap, India failed to persuade China to lift restrictions on the import of Indian software, agricultural products, pharmaceuticals and finance. There was also no headway on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the countries.

A CEOs’ forum has been formed which will advise the two leaders in reaching an enabling environment for the economic market and correcting trade imbalance.