Chinese presidents 3-day visit to focus on trade, border disputes Chinese President Xi Jinping will shortly reach Ahmedabad on a three-day visit to India that will focus on building closer relations with the worlds second-largest economy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is celebrating his 64th birthday on Wednesday, will be at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport in Ahmedabad to receive Jinping, the first Chinese president to visit India since 2006. Modi will also share a moonlight dinner with Xi in a luxury tent on the banks of the Sabarmati river. Jinpings visit, days after Modis successful trip to Japan, is likely to boost investment worth billions of dollars in railways, industrial parks and roads. In a little more than 100 days since he came to power, Modi has engaged in what the NDA government describes as an intensive state of global engagement, reaching out to smaller neighbours and clasping Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a bear hug on his first major trip outside South Asia. Business ties between India and China may be growing fast, but relations between the two countries are also defined by competition for energy and regional clout, as well as a festering border dispute that led to a war 52 years ago. India has firmly told Beijing that it would defend its 3,500-km border with China after reports of a new face-off on the border emerged. More than 200 soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army reportedly crossed into the Indian territory in Ladakh earlier this week and tried to build a 2-km road at the Chumur sector. In a sign that the Modi government wants the Xi visit to be a success, it asked the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to reschedule an event in New Delhi so that it would not clash with the Chinese presidents trip on Friday. The Dalai Lama, who Beijing labels a separatist seeking an independent Tibet, has lived in India since fleeing across the Himalayas after a failed uprising in his homeland in 1959.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 08:30:59 +0000
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