India, China lack mutual understanding -- Li Peng
REUTERS

NEW DELHI, JAN 13: China's second most powerful leader Li Peng said on Saturday India and China still lacked mutual understanding and called for greater efforts to build more trust between the two Asian powers.

"We agree China and India are still lacking in mutual understanding and to achieve better understanding and trust is a pressing task in our bilateral relations," Li, chairman of China's National People's Congress, said in a speech to India's foreign policy elite.

In his speech, he said that multi-polarity represented an "inevitable trend" in international relations and India and China should promote it.

He also said China would continue to push for peaceful reunification of what Beijing considers Chinese territories.

China says Taiwan is an indivisible part of a unified China.

The Chinese leader said that by 2010, China's GDP would double and the country's Gross National Product would grow at an annual rate of more than seven per cent.

On Saturday, Li was also meeting members of the Confederation of Indian Industry, who officials said might bring up the issue of cheap Chinese goods flooding Indian markets.

Many Indian business organisations and lawmakers allege that Chinese goods are being dumped in India.

His visit to India has been marred by protests, and on Saturday, groups of Tibetan exiles alarmed Indian security officials when they managed to reach the gate of the venue where Li was speaking.

Police hit members of a Tibetan exile youth organisation with bamboo canes as they reached the gate of the prestigious India International Centre, less than 100 metres from the hall where Li was speaking.

Armed policemen chased groups of protesters - about 60 in all - who ran into side streets for about 20 minutes, and detained several of them, a police officer said.

A Chinese flag was burnt in the protests, which have been going on for three days in the Indian capital. Protesters are demanding that Beijing begin unconditional talks with the Dalai Lama over Tibet.

Tens of thousands of Tibetans led by the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.