India offers Pakistan ‘China model’: Resolution of issues
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, Jan 27: India urged Pakistan on Monday to take a lesson from the way New Delhi and Beijing have been peacefully seeking to resolve their complex bilateral problems, including an entangled Himalayan border dispute, saying such an approach would benefit both on the issue of Kashmir.
“The wisdom of adopting such an approach to India-Pakistan relations is self-evident. I hope our (western) neighbour will not keep its eyes forever shut to this truth,” Sinha said while inaugurating the Asian Security Conference in New Delhi.
Sinha said India and China had shown the wisdom to move ahead in their bilateral relations even as contentious issues such as the border dispute are being separately addressed.
“Economic integration and an overall improvement in relations has not been held hostage to differences over specific issues, however important those issues be,” he said.
Sinha said New Delhi’s approach to relations with Beijing “is and will remain forward-looking and infused with a sense of optimism”.
India’s policies will not be based on fear of Chinese power or envy of China’s economic achievements.
“They will be based on the conviction that a prosperous India is inevitable. So is a strong and prosperous China,” he said.
Sinha said it was logical, reasonable and in the interest of both nations to address the differences and build on what was common.
“Further, both India and China are too large and too strong to be contained or cowed down by any country, including each other,” he said.
Sino-Indian trade had grown rapidly in the past decade from about 247 million dollars in 1991 to 4.3 billion dollars last year.
Apparently referring to fears expressed by Pakistan’s business groups that opening trade with India would enable it to swamp Pakistan with cheap goods, Sinha again cited the example of China.
The swamping of the Indian market by Chinese goods, which was described by the media as “the second Chinese invasion”, had led Indian producers to withstand the pressures and stand their ground.
On bilateral cooperation, he said the two nations had decided to move ahead in diverse areas while simultaneously finding ways and means of resolving differences “through dialogue and peaceful means”.
