PM to meet Obama, China’s Wen today
India heads into an East Asia-Asean summit faced with the challenge posed by changing dynamics within the grouping, as the United States marks its formal entry into the process for the first time and the shadow cast by China’s
increasingly loud claims to maritime passage and the South China Sea’s rich oil reserves sets the stage for a confrontation. The summit begins Friday, with Russia also joining the group.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who reached Bali on Thursday, will meet US President Barack Obama on Friday. This is the first item on Dr Singh’s packed calendar.
Sources said New Delhi’s growing role in Afghanistan and South Asia would definitely be discussed. But far more significant for both is India’s Nuclear Liability Bill, details of which were made public Thursday and whose notification paves for the way for it to become operational.
The bill, a bone of contention between the US and India, ensures while the operator carries liability for the entire lifetime of a nuclear reactor, the suppliers’ liability would be valid only for a fixed time. It also meets a key demand of foreign suppliers to Indian nuclear power plants that they not be held liable for accidents caused by defective or faulty equipment supplied by them if the accident takes place after a specified guarantee period.
Dr Singh’s next big meeting, straight afterwards, is with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, underlining the twin imperatives driving this summit, the groundwork for which was laid by the US announcing plans to set up a military base in Australia, persuading Canberra to sell uranium to non-NPT signatory India, and gradually inserting itself into Asean, long seen as a grouping created to keep Washington out.
But with the growing primacy of a belligerent China, the East Asia-Asean nations are looking at the US to boost security and act as a buffer against China.
India’s own role has yet to be evolve as the primary objective of its “Look East” policy was anchored in economic imperatives, finding markets for Indian goods and services and inviting investment.
Sources said that at his meeting with Mr Wen the PM will bring up the issue of stapled visas, which has now been resolved to India’s satisfaction. No stapled visas have been issued by the Chinese for the past three months.
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