What comes out loud and clear from the so-called moderate Wen Jiabao’s visit is that China gives little cognisance to India as a rising and matching power even after taking into calculations India’s growing strategic closeness to the United States

If the occurrences in the recent past are any indicators, visits to Delhi by the Chinese dignitaries are invariably accompanied by disconcerting developments in the bordering Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) or in mainland China, creating more than mere pinpricks to India’s security concerns. The recent (December 15-17) Chinese Premier’s trip to India was no exception. As Wen Jiabao descended into Delhi, riding on the wave of a ‘charm offensive’ with a huge business delegation in tow, news broke out of Chinese engineers having blasted through the last part of a tunnel which would provide Metok, a small township of 11,000 inhabitants, an all-weather, round-the-clock connectivity with the rest of Tibet. The 3.3-km Galongla Tunnel, built at an altitude of 12,300 ft, would connect Metok with China’s national highway system. Security implications of this new development were not lost on India’s defence establishment as Metok sits next to Tibet’s eastern border with the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Metok, the region’s last isolated county, is also the place where river Brahmaputra enters India.

If there were hopes that Wen’s December visit would be based on no-holds-barred contours that would take talks between the Indian leaders and the Chinese Premier to the next level where he had left during his earlier 2005 visit, then the outcome was certainly not as per the expectations. The Indian team was hoping for a forward movement on all controversial issues such as stapled visas, a proposed dam on the Chinese side of Brahmaputra River and India’s case for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), not to speak of Pakistan’s role in terrorist activities especially against India and the niggling border issue. But on all the above issues, the Indian side cut little or no ice. For example, Wen’s 2005 visit had been truly forward-looking at least in establishing a roadmap on settling the border issue, which included respecting settled areas, etc. However, since then, there has been considerable backsliding noticed on the Chinese side such as increasingly assertive claims to Arunachal Pradesh. Not only did Wen’s December visit yield no fresh initiatives on the border issue, the Chinese side chose not to resolve even the minor issue of the stapling of visas of Jammu and Kashmir residents. Premier Wen himself nipped it in the bud by asserting that this is a subject that can be discussed between the officials of the two sides, leaving a red rag in India’s face. There was nothing but stony silence from the Chinese side on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

So, what was achieved and what wasn’t? There was a measure of success on the non-political front, predominantly in bilateral trade and investment. Armed with a 300-strong business delegation, Wen was witness to the signing of $16 billion (Rs. 72,000 crore) worth of trade deals. In addition, Beijing committed to redressing the trade imbalance heavily skewed in its favour at present by allowing more market access to Indian products and services. Both sides also set a $100 billion (Rs. 4, 50,000 crore) bilateral trade target for 2015. A hotline was also operationalised between the two PMs.