CPI(M) pleased with PM’s China visit

NEW DELHI: There hasn’t been a breakthrough on the vexed border issue, nor has China committed support to India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, but comrades back home are still very pleased with the outcome of prime minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Beijing.

The CPI(M), a bitter critic of the growing Indo-US strategic alliance, said “by all accounts”, the prime minister’s visit to China was “highly successful and has positively contributed to carrying forward the improvement of relations between the two Asian giants”, which would go a long way in achieving global multi-polarity.

“What is important is that while continuing the dialogue on the border dispute, both countries appear to have converged on the understanding that cooperation in other fields must proceed and be strengthened,” said CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury. 

There has been a new-found sharing of concerns at the developments in Pakistan and the readiness to work together against terror, he said.

“Apart from the unprecedented importance given to this visit in the Chinese media (both state-run TV channels broadcast live the prime minister’s speech at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), this visit has taken forward both the improvement of bilateral relations and the joint role that both the countries ought to play in international affairs. It is clearly in the mutual interests of India and China to carry forward this process,” he said.  

“The joint document outlined the shared vision of the two countries on a range of global issues such as WTO and climate change and Chinese support to India’s greater role in the United Nations Security Council and bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear energy,” Yechury has said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of the party mouthpiece People’s Democracy.

Justifying the delay in solving the border row, he said, “It needs to be recollected that it took China more than seven decades to resolve its border dispute with the former USSR.”

k_benedict@dnaindia.net