China's president to woo investors as India visit wraps up
By Kamalesh Rattansi,WNS India Correspondent
MUMBAI - China's President Hu Jintao was due to wrap up a visit to India on Thursday, the first by a Chinese head of state in a decade, after the two Asian giants agreed to double trade and work to settle a long-festering border row. Hu, accompanied by a nearly 120-member business delegation, was slated to push closer commercial ties at an India-China investment and trade summit in the financial hub Mumbai before flying to Pakistan later in the day. But before he attended the summit, Hu was due to meet the family of an Indian doctor who died while treating Chinese troops during the Sino-Japanese war more than six decades ago and who has become a symbol of warming ties between Beijing and New Delhi.
The story of Dwarkanath Kotnis, a doctor who served Chinese soldiers during the 1937-1945 war and died at the front in 1942, lives on in Chinese textbooks, on postage stamps and at a hospital named after him. "We have a gift for Hu. It's a secret, but something which suits the Chinese heritage," said sister Vatsala Kotnis, also a doctor. Hu declared in New Delhi on Wednesday that China was ready to play a "constructive role" for peace in South Asia and he had made his trip to India to enhance "mutual trust". "China does not seek any selfish gains in South Asia and is ready to play a constructive role in promoting peace and development in the subcontinent," Hu told government officials, business leaders and diplomats in a keynote speech. Hu added he wanted to "chart a new course" for future strategic relations between the world's two most populous nations which have the world's fastest growing economies. "China is ready to work with India," Hu said, calling his talks on Tuesday with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Indian capital "fruitful". Hu made a side-trip on Wednesday to see the Taj Mahal, India's famed monument to Love before heading to Mumbai.
Ties between India and China have long been clouded by the legacy of a 1962 border war and Beijing's economic and military support for Pakistan, India's long-time rival and neighbour. On Tuesday the Chinese leader and Singh pledged to accelerate attempts to settle the frontier dispute which triggered the border war. New Delhi claims a large chunk of Chinese-administered territory in disputed Kashmir while Beijing lays stake to Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh. The leaders also announced on Tuesday plans to double trade to 40 billion dollars by 2010. India and China have been increasingly in competition in recent years, as they expand their global influence and scramble for energy and mineral resources globally to feed their booming economies. Some Indian papers seized on the protocol of Hu's arrival in India as showing the relationship between the Asian giants remained "business-like" rather than warm.
posted by wnsworld @ 11:27 AM
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