China won't take sides between India, Pak on terrorism: Wen

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao flew to Islamabad from the Indian capital this morning, but not before telling Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the private dinner in his honour on Wednesday evening that China “won’t take sides between India and Pakistan on the complex question of terrorism”.

The PM’s dinner in honour of Wen, in fact, has turned out to be the most interesting event of the Chinese premier’s three-day visit to India, with both sides dropping the grandiose rhetoric of the past in favour of a free and frank exchange that incorporated the gamut of issues ranging from stapled visas to defence ties as well as cross-border terrorism.

The PM and his Chinese counterpart were seated across each other on both sides of a long table, flanked by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, senior ministers like Home Minister P Chidambaram, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Advisor Shivshanker Menon and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao.

Clearly, the conversation had been going well, with Premier Wen assuring the PM that he “took very seriously” Indian concerns around the stapled visas issue and would ask his foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, to liase with other departments of the Chinese government, and they would then come back to Delhi.

So when the PM raised the matter of “terrorism emanating from across the border,” the Chinese premier responded by saying that China condemned all forms of terrorism and alluded to the terrorist attacks in Xinjiang. Indian officials expected him to stop there, but the Chinese premier had more to say.

As far as India and Pakistan were concerned, Wen added, terrorism between India and Pakistan was a “complex issue left over from history and China had decided to be impartial and not take sides” on this matter. Both countries should resolve this between themselves, and through peaceful negotiations, said Wen.

The PM responded by saying that he was happy to hear his view.

With no other MPs or other sections of the Indian elite present — as they were during the parties the PM had recently hosted for the US and French presidents — Manmohan Singh’s private dinner is rapidly turning out to be the place where the real news is made.

Significantly, the Chinese premier also categorically told the PM at the dinner that he and the rest of China “condoled the Mumbai terror attacks with India,” a statement that was greeted with considerable enthusiasm by all those present, since it was an indirect criticism of China’s great “all-weather friend and ally”, Pakistan.

However, when Indian officials, meeting their counterparts after dinner, sought to introduce the Mumbai attack “condolences” in the joint statement that would be issued the following day (last evening), they were categorically told by the Chinese that “we can’t put it in.”

Clearly, the conversation between the Chinese and the Indian leaders had been

free and frank, but not enough to translate into the public sphere.

The joint statement, as it turned out, only indirectly referred to the Mumbai attackers.

Interestingly, several other delicate matters also did not figure either over the PM’s dinner or the more formal talks at Hyderabad House yesterday morning.

Whether or not it was the indirect quid pro quo that Delhi demanded over Kashmir, trading it for a mention of Tibet, and therefore the presence of the “one China policy” phrase (it was dropped because Beijing wasn’t willing to go public on Kashmir), or even the refusal to entertain a regional trading arrangement, all these discussions took place in the negotiations in the run-up to the visit, but not anytime during the visit.

But the officials, expressing satisfaction at this “more equal conversation” that has gone on between India and China over the better part of 2010, said they would much rather that both sides spoke frankly, even if they didn’t agree with each other.