The nuclear deal may have weighed on the minds of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s delegation, but his conversation with US President George W Bush went far beyond that and took a qualitative leap when for the first time the two leaders had a free-wheeling talk on China. While Bush underlined how China was different to open societies like India and US, Singh is said to have flagged off concerns its neighbours have about the next generation of leadership in Beijing.

It was the US President who broached the topic, coming as it did after the Chinese resistance at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meet, by bringing up his visit to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Bush told Singh that Beijing was very nervous that he would cancel his plans while he never had any such intentions. He had to give repeated assurances to the Chinese leadership of his decision to be present.

While praising the Chinese effort for the Olympics, Bush also went on to compare the openness in societies like India and the US to that of China and pointed out that “we were different”. He even shared with Singh the conversation that he had with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tibet and the Dalai Lama during his visit.

According to top sources, Bush conveyed that he asked Hu to lower the temperature on the Tibetan spiritual head as he was just a “man of peace”. But Hu did not agree and told Bush that all the Dalai Lama wanted was an independent Tibet — Hu was governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region during its worst uprising.

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