LEAD: India's Vajpayee arrives in China for 6-day visit

0 Comments | Asian Political News, June 24, 2003

BEIJING, June 22 Kyodo

(EDS: CHANGING DATELINE, UPDATING WITH ARRIVAL)

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee arrived in Beijing on Sunday for a six-day visit that is expected to boost economic ties, but unlikely to make much headway on more complicated issues such as a lingering border dispute.

Vajpayee is the first Indian prime minister to visit China since then Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao visited in February 1993. Vajpayee has visited China twice in the past, first as India's foreign minister in 1979 and then as a member of the country's parliamentary delegation in 1993.

Vajpayee is accompanied by senior members of his cabinet, including Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha and Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, as well as a large business delegation.

During the visit through Friday, Vajpayee will meet his counterpart Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao as well as Hu's powerful predecessor Jiang Zemin to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues.

The two sides are expected to ink agreements that promote culture, education, science and technology, and an easy visa regime, Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal told reporters on the eve of Vajpayee's visit.

The visit is expected to widen trade and investment ties between the world's two most populous nations. Trade between them reached $5 billion in 2002 -- nearly 20 times the $200 million in the early 1990s.

Relations between the two countries have been frosty for years and only warmed in the late 1980s due to high-profile visits from both sides, increased economic ties, and for the first time, the launch of direct flights between the two countries last year.

But there are some issues that still remain a thorn in the side of bilateral ties.

China and India have been unable to resolve their differences over the disputed territory, despite numerous diplomatic discussions following their brief but bloody border war in 1962, followed by a limited clash across the disputed border area in 1986.

India says China still holds 38,000 square kilometers of its territory at Aksai Chin in Kashmir. China lays claim to 90,000 square km of land in India's far eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

China also refused to recognize the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim, which India annexed in 1974, and Beijing is also concerned about the influx of Tibetans into India via Sikkim.

India is home to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and over 100,000 Tibetans who have sought refuge in India since their failed uprising against China in 1958.

Tensions flared in 1998 when Indian Defense Minister George Fernades said his country decided to go nuclear because it viewed China as a huge future threat and referred to it as ''enemy number one.''

India has also accused China of giving aid to Pakistan's nuclear program. Though China maintains that its nuclear and missile cooperation with India's arch rival does not violate Beijing's legal obligations of nuclear nonproliferation.