Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to address some of India's key concerns like those on stapled visas for Jammu and Kashmir residents, its bid for permanent membership in UNSC and growing trade imbalance, to put strained bilateral ties back on track.
Wen will arrive in New Delhi tomorrow for a three day visit, a trip billed as a "significant event" by China.
The visit is taking place after elaborate rounds of talks at various levels starting with the candid meeting between Wen and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Hanoi in October this year, creating high expectations to remove some of the major irritants like stapled visas, which created furore in India.
Ahead of the visit, Chinese official media projected it on a positive light today with headlines like, "China has high expectations for Premier Wen's upcoming visit to India" and "India visit to help smoothen trade ties".
The visa issue resulted in India putting on hold the defence exchanges after rejection of visa to a top Indian General BS Jaswal on the ground that he headed troops in Jammu and Kashmir.
Ahead of the three day visit, Chinese officials too sounded upbeat on finding a solution to the visa row.
"We will not exclude the possibility of discussions on any issue. For the issues such as visas, I believe the working level staff will talk about it between our two countries," Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister, Hu Zhengyue, who briefed the media here about Wen's visit said.
Indications are that China has promised to find some solution and issued regular visas to some Kashmiris, indicating a roll back of its policy which started since 2008.
India has flagged off this issue in all the high level discussions in the recent months as it marked a significant China's stand amounted to taking sides favouring Pakistan on Kashmir issue, ending its neutral stand.
Officials here said Chinese leadership was concerned about implications of continuing the policy specially after getting the feed back from Zhou Yongkong, the politburo member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, who recently visited New Delhi and ruling opposition parties, who in voice expressing concern over the policy.
Satisfactory solution?
If a satisfactory solution was found, Wen's visit would result in the resumption of defence exchanges, which China appeared keen, officials said.
The Chinese premier's visit is also significant as he is expected to elaborate on China's stand India's bid for permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council.
China was caught by surprise by US President Barrack Obama's announcement during his India trip fully backing India's aspirations to get the permanent seat.
China backed India's election to the non-permanent seat this year and expressed readiness to hold talks with New Delhi in the light Obama's announcement as it is the only Veto wielding member countries to decide on it.
The other four, US, France, UK and Russia have backed India's candidature.
Hu said the Premier's "discussions will touch upon this matter.
"It is not for the first time it has come up in our discussions. Our two countries have exchanged views on many occasions and publicised documents. We have made our stand clear. We are happy to see India playing a bigger role in international arena including the United Nations," he said.
Wen's talks in New Delhi on key issue will be watched carefully in Islamabad as the Premier would travel there from New Delhi on December 17 to revitalise the close strategic, all weather ties between the two countries.
Trade deficit
Ahead of Wen's visit China also expressed its readiness to address the trade imbalance issue as the trade deficit crossed a record USD 16 billion this year even though the bilateral trade too expected to touch record USD 60 billion.
"India is having a trade deficit with China, this is true. Actually China has attached a lot of importance to this trade imbalance. The reasons for such an imbalance are determined by as a result of trade structures between the two sides," Liang Wenzhao, Deputy director of the Department of Asian Affairs of China's Ministry of Commerce told media here at a briefing about Wen's visit.
"The Chinese government is taking a number of measures to expand its import from India" which included sending trade and investment promotion information to India to purchase products that India wants to export as well as India's competitive products', he said.
The run up to the visit was not smooth as the two countries had some hiccups as China has asked India along with all other countries to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize presentations ceremony to its jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo.
However during the past few days China began focussing on Wen's visit India and Pakistan, giving a positive projection, allaying fears that it may have a negative impact.
According to China Daily about 30 deals, mainly focussing on iron ore, biochemical products and fabrics were expected to be signed during visit to India.
Expectations are that the two sides would conclude USD 20 billion worth of agreements.
Besides holding talks with Singh, Wen will also meet President Pratibha Patil, UPA Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi and other political leaders, besides interacting with cultural and media professionals.
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