Chinese envoy meets BJP chief with white flag

With no respite in the war or words between the Chinese and Indian Government over Arunachal Pradesh, China reached out to the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday to “express some views on recent events” and asserted it “wants to build up confidence among the people of two countries”.

The hour-long meeting between Chinese ambassador Zhang Yan and BJP president Rajnath Singh comes against the backdrop of the principal opposition’s demand to immediately convene an all-party meeting to ‘review’ the entire gamut of Indo-Sino relationship after China objected to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

In the meeting, Chinese ambassador asserted that “there were some historical left-over issues between the two countries”. Yan argued these are very sensitive issues and at time the sensitivity becomes quite high as a consequence of projection in the media.

“The People of India and BJP as a party are always in favour of maintaining cordial relations with its neighbours including China. India is always ready to walk a step forward, but it has to be reciprocated,” Rajnath told Yan.

The BJP chief claimed ‘recent incidents’ had dented the confidence of Sino-India relationship and the recurring claims made by China over Arunachal Pradesh are a serious interference in India’s internal matters. “The BJP rejects China’s objection over the visit of Indian leaders to Arunachal Pradesh particularly that of Prime Minister recently,” the BJP president told Yan.

Rajnath also raised with the ambassador other issues like Chinese Embassy not issuing proper visas to Kashmiri Indians, its efforts to obstruct the Asian Development Bank’s aid for development projects to India, its involvement and support for various activities and projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and construction of Dam over Brahmputra River.

As both the sides agreed that mutual confidence would only improve the relationship between the two countries, the ambassador informed the BJP president that Zhou Yongkang, a senior member of Standing Committee of Politburo of the Communist Party of China, would visit India in November. This will be the most important visit of any Chinese leader after President Hu Jintao visited India in 2006.

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