On the eve of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s three-day visit to India, after which the Chinese leader heads to the capital of “all-weather friend” Pakistan, Zhang Yan, Beijing’s ambassador in New Delhi, seems to be shooting in the wrong direction. Mr Zhang worried on Monday at a function in the Indian capital that Sino-Indian ties were “very fragile and very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair”. Efforts were needed on both sides, he noted, to create an objective and friendly environment based on mutual trust to ensure that the two countries do not have a wrong perception of one another. In order to achieve this highly desirable state, the prescription from the People’s Republic is that “the government should provide guidance to the public”. In other words, the media should be controlled when it comes to commenting on China or Sino-India relations. This is easily done, the ambassador would appreciate, if India were like China, a politburo-guided paradise. Since that is not the case, the recipe is unrealistic. And if the logic of the ambassador’s thought is to be pursued, then the India-China story is doomed for the simple reason that the media here cannot be given a line to follow. This train of Chinese thinking appears so simplistic as to be contrived. Therefore, if Beijing’s representative here is barking up the wrong tree by picking on the media, it is because he appears to have instructions to do just that. Only the innocent can be fed the notion that China does not know what the media is all about in countries where capitalism prevails. The truth is that instead of seeking to get to the bottom of things, to figure out why public opinion in India gets upset with China so frequently of late, the Chinese response is to blame it on the media.
If Beijing’s intent is to sort out relations in a spirit of goodwill, we would recommend a different tack. We may only hope that in official talks the Chinese Premier does not put a gloss on the key issues between the two countries and advise that we wait for the end of protracted negotiations. After all, the stated purpose of Mr Wen’s trip is to soothe feelings in India. That requires that the core issues that concern India will have to be allowed for in Chinese thinking. Kashmir is important in this regard. Refusing a top Indian military official a Chinese visa because he served in Jammu and Kashmir, starting the new system of stapling Chinese paper visas issued to Indian citizens from that state, engaging in projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and arranging Chinese soldiers in some strength on the Karakoram highway in the guise of roadbuilders — these are some of the issues that have disturbed the Indian people and the government. The media has only reflected this.
Rising trade figures are all very well. The visiting Chinese Premier is scheduled to come with a delegation comprising several hundred businessmen with a view to doing about $20 billion worth of trade deals. He is welcome and one may hope that his government would in the process also allow the import of Indian pharmaceuticals and software into China. Fundamentally, however, when it comes to rebuilding political trust that was shattered by the unfriendliness exemplified by the 1962 war, Beijing’s policy toward India would have to shed its Pakistan angularity, that is, roll back steps aimed at giving comfort to Islamabad in the latter’s dealings with New Delhi. China must learn to keep its ties with Pakistan separate and autonomous from its relations with this country.