What really brought Wen to India?
The Hindu
B.S. Raghavan / December 20, 2010

Heads of Governments do not embark on official visits outside their countries except for reasons that have to do with matters of moment. The recent visit to India of the Chinese Premier, Mr Wen Jiabao, does not measure up by this yardstick. What had been given out in the joint statement, media briefings and Mr Wen's talk at the Indian Council of World Affairs, does not add up to anything substantial; in fact, for the most part, whether it is the boundary question, trans-border river issues, the issue of stapled visas by China for residents of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, or the resultant suspension of high-level Defence exchanges, they have all been smothered by airy-fairy phraseology connoting little progress.

A reality check

Let us do a small reality check: Surely, Mr Wen did not come all the way to join the Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries? Those relations, as every schoolboy knows, have been running a chequered course till this day, and one would have considered undertaking a long journey, leaving the more pressing business at home, was hardly worth it.

Was it then to inaugurate the hotline which either Prime Minister could pick up at the first tinkle and solve problems as they arise? It needs only to be mentioned to be dismissed. We have all been hearing of these hotlines ever since the end of the Second World War. Almost every head of state/government had come to have a hotline with every other who counted in the affairs of the world and even during the Cold War, the US Presidents had hotline with the No.1 in the Soviet Union. I do not recall a single occasion when it was reported to have been put to use either to stop a catastrophe or launch an earth-shaking initiative.

Or, is it for the signing of $16- billion worth of deals by the 400 or so CEOs who travelled with him? Not unless Mr Wen wanted to be one up on the US President, Mr Barack Obama, in regard to both the number of business honchos, and the number and the total amount of the deals. For, individually, each of the deals is not of such magnitude as to require the personal presence of Mr Wen. They could very well have been left to the parties concerned to sign on their own.

Fixture in perpetuity

At least, if the visit gave a conclusive pointer to the resolution of the issue of stapled visas — the one major provocation in which China has been indulging without any qualm or compunction — the trip could have been taken as having served some purpose. It is a procedure unilaterally and wantonly adopted by China and all that it needs to give it up is the will, as a mark of the friendship, partnership and the like that it has been outwardly professing for India. What is there in it that is so very arcane and complicated that it should be relegated to ‘in-depth consultations' between officials from both sides, as suggested by Mr Wen and as accepted by Dr Singh? Does India want the stapled visas also to become a fixture in perpetuity till eternity as official consultations on the boundary question have?

I consider this goof-up the most ludicrous part of the agreement that has been deliberately foisted on India to kickstart it on a journey to a never-never land. The pride that the Foreign Secretary, Ms Nirupama Rao, takes in the absence of references to sovereignty of Tibet and One China in the joint statement only draws the wool over the people's eyes; she must know that having figured so many times in formal statements, there is no way India can resile from them, whether mentioned once again or not.