US, China try to pacify India

After ruffling feathers in Delhi with a reference to Indo-Pak ties, the US today sought to pacify India, saying it has to decide with Pakistan the substance, scope and pace of their relationship.

“We’ve always said, in terms of Indo-Pakistan relations, that’s really up to India and Pakistan to decide how and when and the scope of that,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake, told reporters here.

“We have very important relations with China. But we have equally important relations with India. And I think that will come out very clearly during the course of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit next week,” he said.

Meanwhile, China also tried to pacify India today on a controversial reference in the Sino-US joint statement, saying that it was not trying to meddle in Indo-Pak ties.

Responding to a question on what China thought was its role in the India-Pakistan relationship, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang tried to downplay the significance of the Sino-US joint statement and said Beijing hopes for “gradual improvement” in Indo-Pak ties.

US wants India to up FDI caps
Blake also said that the Obama administration wants India to lift the cap in both defence and insurance sectors.

“One thing that I think the Indian government could do would be to lift the cap on foreign equity in Indian defence firms, from 26 per cent to 49 per cent,” Blake told reporters.

He said there will be a announcement about a new framework in trade after the US-India summit here next week.

“This is an area where we have been working very hard and made a lot of progress over the last several years. There is a lot of ongoing work that we just need to continue,” he said. “I just think there’s a tremendous amount of progress that’s already been made... But more is needed. Particularly, I talked earlier about the need to continue to open the economy,” he noted.