The focus of the talks, sources said, will be the Chinese claim over Tawang and 90,000 km in Arunachal Pradesh. India pointed out to China in the previous round that one of the political parameters agreed between both sides during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in April 2005 was “safeguarding the interests of the settled population”. Arunachal Pradesh, including Tawang, is a fit case to ensure that this population is not disturbed.

However, China has not accepted the merit of the argument indicating that Arunachal Pradesh is one of the most sparsely populated states of India, particularly areas like Asaphila and Kinzemane which are part of the Chinese claim. This, sources said, has been one of the key areas of disagreement between the Special Representatives — National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo — who have deliberated twice already on how to work out a package solution for a final settlement of the vexed boundary dispute. India had hoped to obtain a shift in Beijing’s position on Tawang ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit in November. In fact, New Delhi proposed to hold a round of talks between the SRs just ahead of the visit. But China declined the offer by not responding to the dates. Instead, considerable political heat was generated over the issue by Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Yuxi, who chose to reassert Beijing’s claims over Arunachal Pradesh in public.

New Delhi responded by taking up the matter with Beijing and objecting to Sun’s remarks. The air was finally cleared to some extent when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Hu during their bilateral meeting that there can be uprooting of settled population in Tawang or the entire state. The Chinese President, for his part, agreed to define an early settlement to the issue as a “strategic objective” and hoped it would not impact progress in other areas of cooperation.

Singh met Wen on January 14, just three days ahead of the SR-level talks, on the margins of the ASEAN meet at Cebu where the matter was discussed again.