NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China next week amid hopes it would leave a powerful impact on Asia, by pooling in strengths of the world’s two largest developing countries, reports said on Tuesday.

In a string of messages on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, according to The Hindu reporting from Beijing, Mr Modi said that he was ‘certain’ that his three-day visit to China from May 14 would “strengthen stability, progress and prosperity in Asia”.

The prime minister opened his Weibo account on Monday, which has evoked energetic responses — mostly laudatory, but also a significant number which question the status of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Hindu said Mr Modi will start his visit from Xian, which is symbolically important as it is associated with Xuan Zang (Hieun Tsang), the Buddhist monk and traveller who had visited India, who has left an important record of interaction between China and India in the early Tang dynasty.

The ancient city — one of the four great ancient capitals of China — is also the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, and therefore central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Silk Road revival projects, which aim to integrate the economies of Eurasia, the paper said. “Warmly recall my conversations with President Xi Jinping and his invitation to visit Xian in his home province,” Mr Modi said, referring to his conversations with the Chinese president during his visit to India in September last.

While details of the prime ministerial agenda have not yet been revealed, Liu Jinsong, a deputy director general in the Chinese foreign ministry, said during preparations of the visit, according to the report, that the two countries should now look beyond their successful interaction in information technology, where India’s software advantages have complemented Chinese strengths in the hardware arena.

The official pointed out that China was good in “three areas such as high speed railway, nuclear power stations and electricity facilities”. He added that India could also partner Beijing’s rapidly developing aerospace industry.

Regarding the disputed border, Huang Xilian, who is the deputy director general for Asian affairs, and deals with India, pointed out that, “Strong leadership [in China and India] will obviously provide strong guidance to our relationship, including on negotiation of the boundary question.”

Analysts, however stress that reinforcement of measures that will keep the border calm continue to remain in focus. The resolution of the border row is expected to remain a time-consuming exercise, but a “framework” or a set of rules to that apply to different segments of the mountainous terrain has been reached during the previous rounds of boundary negotiations.

Signalling that the visit would have a strong economic content, the prime minister said that he was confident that his visit would “lay the foundation for further enhancing economic cooperation with China in a wide range of sectors”.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2015

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