Indian Express

Pranab Dhal Samanta

Nov 15 2010

Wuhan: Barely a month ahead of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India next month, New Delhi has made it clear that it expects Beijing to set the record straight on Jammu & Kashmir by reciprocating just the way India has done in the case of Chinese sensitivities in Tibet and Taiwan.

This was conveyed by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna to his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in the course a 70-minute bilateral conversation on the margins of the Russia-India-China trilateral meet here on Sunday.

However, Yang continued to be ambiguous in his response and did not even raise the issue of New Delhi having frozen high-level military exchanges after Beijing conveyed that the Northern Army Commander would have to be considered for a stapled visa as he is in-charge of a “disputed area”.

Giving out details of these talks, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao put it bluntly on record: “Our minister (Krishna) referred to the need to show mutual sensitivity and that the Chinese side needs to be sensitive to our concerns in J&K like India has been sensitive to Chinese concerns on Taiwan and Tibet.”