Putrajaya, Malaysia: Setting a positive
tone ahead of his meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday said there is "enormous"
possibility of India and China working together as the world
has enough space to accommodate the growth ambitions of both
the countries.
Singh, while replying to a question on India-China
relations after delivering a lecture on 'India's Development
Experience', kept aside the controversial issues like stapled
visas over which the two countries had a war of words
yesterday.
"India and China are both fast growing economies. China
happens to be the largest trading partner of India even though
there is imbalance (in China's favour)," he said.
Singh said he was often asked whether India and China
were competitors and he responded by saying that there are
"enormous possibilities" for the two countries to work
together.
"The world is large enough to accommodate the growth
ambitions of both India and China," he said, adding his
government was approaching the relations with China with this
approach.
The Prime Minister skirted the controversial issues that
plague the bilateral relations like issuance of stapled visas
by China to people from Jammu and Kashmir over which India is
angry as it sees the action amounting to questioning its
sovereignty.
China started the practice of issuing the stapled visas
about two years back and the issue triggered a major row in
July this year when Beijing wanted to give such a visa to
India's Northern Area Commander Lt Gen B S Jaswal.
India responded by suspending high-level defence
exchanges for which Lt Gen Jaswal was travelling to Beijing
and has repeatedly made it clear that these will remain on
"pause" till China reverts to its earlier position on Jammu
and Kashmir.
The issue is expected to figure in talks that Singh will
have with Wen in Hanoi on Friday, the first top level contact
since the July incident. The two leaders will be in the
Vietnamese capital for ASEAN Summit.
Earlier, in his 'Khazanah Global Lecture', Singh said
when he was a student, few dreamt that India and China or
other Asian nations would catch up with the industrialised
world. "Today, few doubt that a fundamental change in the
global economy is underway."
He said dynamic emerging economies are growing rapidly
despite a period of slow growth in the industrialised world.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 15:01