HANOI (Vietnam) Stapled visas to the residents of Jammu & Kashmir and Beijing’s assistance in projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir are likely to come up in the talks between the Prime Ministers of India and China in here on Friday.
India has expressed hope that the talks between Dr Manmohan Singh and Wen Jiabao will be cordial and productive. Ahead of the talks, sources said that there is all the reason to believe that the talks will be substantive, cordial and productive. According to India’s official radio AIR, the boundary question and other bilateral, regional and international issues are likely to come up for discussion at the meeting being held on the sidelines of the East Asia summit.
This is the first meeting between the two Prime Ministers after the high level Defence exchanges were suspended by India over the issue of stapled visa for the residents of Jammu and Kashmir by China. Despite India protest there has been no change in China policy. India is likely to affirm its position that there should be a uniform practice of issuing visa by China to the residents regardless of the ethnicity or domicile of the applicants. Beijing assistance in projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir are areas of concern for India and these could also be taken up by the Indian side. The trade balance which is heavily in favour of China is also likely to be taken up at the meeting apart from the discussion on boundary question. Issues like Climate Change on which the two have been together on the multi lateral fora is also likely to figure in the talks. India has always maintained that engagement quotient in the ties with China to go up and the confrontation quotient to come down.
The Prime Minister arrived in Hanoi Thursday evening on a three day visit to Vietnam on the final leg of his three-nation tour.
Earlier in the day Dr. Singh concluded his two day successful visit to Malaysia with a call to the business community in Kulalampur to invest in India. He held detailed talks with his Malaysian counterpart on a host of issues and decided to intensify economic cooperation between the two countries. The two countries signed the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement which will be implemented from July next year. They also decided to enhance their defence ties and set up a bilateral joint working group on counter terrorism and in the area of renewable energy.