NEW DELHI, 21 April 2003 — Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes will try to push forward a slow moving rapprochement with giant neighbor China during a rare trip that begins today, officials and analysts said.
Fernandes, who once irked Beijing by calling it India’s foremost enemy, will be the highest ranking defense official to visit China in more than a decade. The last to visit Beijing was Sharad Pawar in 1992.
India and China, the world’s most populous nations, fought a border war in 1962 and have since made slow progress in demarcating their 4,500 km long Himalayan border.
“The visit will contribute toward the building of trust and good will between two large Asian neighbors,” a Defense Ministry spokesman said in a statement yesterday.
Ties between the two nations nose-dived in May 1998 when India conducted a series of underground nuclear explosions, citing regional threat perceptions. Fernandes earlier that year named China as India’s main rival.
New Delhi has in addition been long concerned about Chinese military collaboration with Pakistan including what it says are missile transfers. Beijing denies the allegation.
“After a brief chill, India and China have once again, and warily, sought to put the bilateral relations back on track,” wrote foreign affairs expert C. Raja Mohan in the Hindu newspaper. He said the Indian leader’s visit to China was significant because of the “delicate” nature of ties.
Fernandes will hold talks with his counterpart Cao Gangchuan and visit defense sites around Beijing and Shanghai during his week-long trip, the spokesman said.
The visit is also expected to lay the groundwork for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s trip to China later in the year. No dates have been set for Vajpayee’s trip.
Fernandes is accompanied by a 16-member high-level delegation, which includes Defense Secretary Subir Dutta, Secretary Defense Production N.S. Sisodhia, Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Shantanu Choudhary, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral R. Gopalachary and top officials of the ministries of defense and external affairs.
Fernandes will be first Indian leader to meet China’s new leaders who took charge of the party and government in November last year and in March this year.
Fernandes will call on the chairman of the Central Military Commission and former President Jiang Zemin, Premier Wen Jiabao and other senior Chinese leaders, official sources said.
China hopes that Fernandes’ visit will enhance mutual understanding and propel military exchanges between the two nations. “We welcome the upcoming visit to China by the defense minister of India. We hope that this visit will help enhance mutual understanding between the Chinese and Indian people,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Beijing.
Fernandes’ visit signals the two nations’ desire to enhance their military-to-military cooperation and cushion their politico-diplomatic differences on certain issues. Several major steps were taken in this direction last year.
During the then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongii’s India visit in January last year, the two nations arrived at consensus on future development of bilateral ties. That was the first India visit of a Chinese premier in ten years’ time. This was followed by resumption of direct air links between the two nations through direct service of China Eastern Airlines last year in March.
