Last Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set the stage for his forthcoming three-day Beijing visit when he referred the joint task force report on India-China regional trade agreement (RTA) to Commerce Minister Kamal Nath for further negotiations with his counterpart.

At the high-level Trade and Economic Relations Committee meeting, Singh also concurred with the views of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Nath that China could not be given market economy status till 2016 under WTO provisions. At the same time, he decided to revise the bilateral trade target to $50-60 billion — a quantum jump from $34.2 billion at present and the targeted $40 billion during the NDA regime — by 2010. His message for his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, through these decisions was that despite its tremendous growth potential, New Delhi was in no hurry to allow Beijing into its markets until it showed seriousness in addressing long-standing bilateral issues including the boundary dispute.

Seen in the context of Singh and Wen’s meeting on the sidelines of the East Asia summit on November 21, these decisive steps indicate India’s desire to go with substance than the packaging of India-China bilateral relations. At the Singapore meeting, Wen said India should be prepared to give substantial concessions in the eastern and western sectors on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to resolve the boundary issue and sought RTA with India as well as market economy status for China. Though Singh made it clear that he had across-the-board political backing in India to sort out the boundary dispute, Wen indicated that Beijing wanted to move away from the mutually agreed political parameters to resolve the boundary issue in April 2005.

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