Menon is PM's envoy to China

The Prime Minister has appointed National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon as his special envoy to China, in which capacity Menon is traveling to Beijing from July 3-6 for wide-ranging conversations with that country.

Menon, who is also India’s Special Representative on the border talks with China, is however, not going to Beijing this time for talks on the border issue.

This is the first time in at least the last couple of decades that a special envoy on China has been named. Menon, a Mandarin speaker and a former ambassador to China, clearly enjoys the PM’s confidence to develop this extremely important relationship.

Menon is expected to meet President Hu Jintao as well as Premier Wen Jiabao during his visit, but it isn’t clear so far who his designated interlocutor is going to be from the Chinese side.

It is being speculated that the Chinese representative could be either Foreign Minister Yang Jieche, chief of the International Liasion Department of the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Jiarui, or even Dai Bingguo, the director of the general office of the foreign affairs leadership group of the Communist party’s Central Committee.

Comrade Dai is already the designated Special Representative from the Chinese side on border talks with China and considered one of the most powerful men in China. The institution of the Special Representatives was created in 2003 when former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Thursday that Menon and his hosts will exchange views on China-India relations, and international and regional issues of common concern. He gave no more details.

The Ministry of External Affairs’ press release was even shorter, only baldly stating the facts.

Interestingly, Menon’s trip to Beijing comes immediately before the visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to China, its “all-weather friend” and ally.

Menon’s visit has been in the making for some weeks, with government sources stressing that his role as special envoy is to try and understand the “dynamics, shape and structure” of Delhi’s expanding relationship with Beijing, “in all its manifestations.”

From the promised sale of two additional nuclear reactors to Pakistan to Beijing’s reluctance to open its market to Indian goods (pharmaceuticals, IT-related goods and Indian movies) to its readiness to give permission to certain Pakistani terrorists so that the process for UN proscription can begin, India’s multifaceted relationship with China is defined by the fact that India must find “new and creative ways” to relate to this rising power.

The sources pointed out that India could not ignore the rise of such a pre-eminent nation, that Delhi had received signals from Beijing that it would like to begin a sustained dialogue with India on all issues across the board. The dialogue on the border was to be a separate one, the sources said.

On the matter of the intended Chinese sale of two more nuclear reactors to Pakistan (Chashma-3 and Chashma -4), Indian sources said they “would not object” any more strenuously, but would watch, wait and monitor the developments.

Indian officials said they realised the sale of the nuclear reactors was pretty much a fait accompli when the US refused to confront China at the recent Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in New Zealand.