The Chinese have a string of problems in India, ranging from business visa to denial of infrastructure contracts. Their old comrades in India are now planning to take up these not-so-socialist issues with the Prime Minister.

After asking the government to identify the security concerns that have seen Chinese firms lose out to others in key projects, the CPI(M) plans to suggest to the government the need to change rules that have stood since 1962 but are now, according to the party, working against Chinese firms.

The key point will be changes to the visa rules that now allow Chinese nationals to be in India for three months. The party’s decision to take up the issue with the government follows earlier meetings with Sun Yuxi, the Chinese ambassador to India, who told CPI(M) leaders that while Indians were given two years’ visa which could be renewed during their stay in China, there was no such reciprocity for Chinese businessmen.

The issue has assumed a new urgency ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit in November. “We want a level-playing field. The new policies of liberalisation have opened up the economy and there is declared cooperation on economic ties with China. But the ground reality is there are restrictions that were imposed in 1962. There is a mismatch between the two. That has to be corrected,” said CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, who is the party’s parliamentary party leader. The CPI(M), having accepted FDI and foreign capital as necessary in a global environment —Leftist governments in West Bengal and Kerala are unabashedly courting foreign capital—feels that the Chinese are being discriminated against while other foreign companies are being awarded important infrastructure projects even though they may not be strictly satisfying all security concerns. In the light of the Chinese being struck off the list of bidders for the Vizhinjam Deep Water International Transshipment Terminal in Kerala for security reasons, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said he wanted the government to explain why Chinese firms were being “persistently discriminated against”.

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