PM’s Productive Talks in Moscow and Beijing

EDITORIAL

As the campaign for the State Assembly elections picks up, the prices of essential foodstuffs, notably onions, are registering massive increase in the Capital causing immense hardship to the middle classes, not to speak of those in the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. This has caused considerable anxiety among the functionaries of the incumbent Delhi Government, and CM Sheila Dikshit in particular, for it would adversely affect the Congress’ poll prospects in the Capital with the Opposition and AAP, BJP workers already out on the streets to exploit the situation to their advantage.

Against this sombre backdrop of the domestic situation PM Manmohan Singh’s visits to Russia and China have turned out to be quite successful. Of course critics have made much of the fact that Dr Manmohan Singh’s trip to Moscow had failed to deliver an agreement on units 3 and 4 at Kudankulam because of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act. As the detailed article on the significance of the PM’s latest visit to Russia in the facing page explains, this was the most productive of all the Indo-Russian summits held during Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure as the PM. This was clearly reflected in the striking identity of views of the two sides on all major issues of bilateral interest and concern in the global and regional spheres and that was also manifest in the PM’s public speech in the Russian capital. This has of course been ignored by our corporate-driven media although dispassionate observers and experts of Indo-Russian relations have not failed to note its significance interwined as it is with the restoration of Moscow’s international prestige and stature in the wake of the events in and around Syria.

As for Dr Manmohan Singh’s talks in China, these too have been doubtless productive resulting in the conclusion of as many as nine agreements even though a liberalised visa regime could not be realised because of Beijing’s renewed decision, on October 11, to issue stapled visas to two Indian archers from Arunachal Pradesh (a State which China considers its own territory by arguing that it was part of Tibet now under Chinese control), something which once again evoked strong reaction from the side of New Delhi.

But what is noteworthy is that the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCE), signed between the two sides, provides a “more robust protocol” to defuse confrontations and “build trust” between the rival armies along the 4057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) till a long-term solution of the boundary dispute is worked out. True, the BDCA cannot prevent face-offs but it “provides a template to manage and defuse face-offs”, like the one at Depsang in the recent past, even as it allows both sides to take appropriate measures according to their own security needs, as sources have elucidated. This is evidently a step forward in ensuring peace and tranquillity along the Sino-Indian border, something first mooted during former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao’s visit to Beijing in the early nineties, and can be construed as some kind of a breakthrough in the prevailing circumstances.

Also important is the agreement on strengthening cooperation on trans-border rivers; this too is being interpreted as a breakthrough. The Chinese have finally agreed to expand the scope of the current expert-level mechanism from just sharing hydrological data to “exchange views an other issue of mutual interest”—meaning thereby that New Delhi can now discuss its concerns about the hydro-electric projects planned upstream along the Brahmaputra river on the Chinese side.

The issue of Pak-based terror as well as Beijing’s role in PoK were raised by the Indian side during the talks. Overall therefore the summit covered a wide range of subjects and both sides were able to understand each other better now that a new leadership has taken charge in China.

The PM’s trips to Moscow and Beijing were thus definitely fruitful from our country’s perspective. To ignore this basic fact is to be blind to the positive features of the present-day reality in the world arena.

October 24 S.C.