That was not all. Zhu insisted that “the same is overdue for China’s peasantry, which has played the biggest role in China’s road to prosperity with its sacrifices to feed and enrich the country’s modern cities.”

The Chinese enthusiasm for India’s budget comes amidst mounting rural unrest in our northern neighbour. In recent years, China has moved to grant a measure of property rights to its citizens, especially in urban areas. The peasants do get leases on land, but can’t own it. The Communist Party is reluctant to touch the socialist dogma on ‘collective ownership of land’.

Driven to desperation, Chinese farmers are fighting back with the slogan ‘land to the tiller’ that should sound familiar to our communists. China’s rural unrest is gaining new international and domestic attention, thanks to the focus on the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing later this year.

Last month, a Chinese land rights activist, Yang Chunlin, was put on trial for subversion. Yang gathered 10,000 signatures for an open letter demanding farmers’ rights. To rally support, he posted the letter on the Internet with the title, ‘We want human rights, not the Olympics.’ For now, opposing the Olympics is the bigger, more urgent crime.

Lalu’s big think

While Chidambaram has reasons to be pleased, Railway Minister Lalu Yadav might want to check out what the Chinese Railways are up to in Nepal which shares a long border with Bihar.

After it completed the rail link to Lhasa a couple of years ago, Beijing has repeatedly signaled its interest in extending it up to the Nepal border. Now there are indications that China is ready to push the line right into the Kathmandu valley.

An assistant foreign minister, He Yafei, who is visiting Nepal this week, has reportedly reaffirmed Beijing’s interest in the Kathmandu rail link. The minister has also promised to make permanent arrangements for the supply of petroleum products to Nepal from China. Until now India has been the sole supplier of fuel to land-locked Nepal.

When these two projects go through, China would have neutralised India’s geographic advantages in Nepal. Rather than oppose these projects, India should expedite its own plans to build oil pipelines into Nepal and deepen the Indian rail network’s presence in our northern neighbour.

Lalu has enough political clout to get New Delhi to make an historic offer on building a rail link to Kathmandu and beyond. He could even propose joining up with the Chinese rail network on Nepal’s border. That should connect the markets of north India and west China and position Nepal as a transit zone.

A rail line connecting northern India with Kathmandu has been around for a long time. Rail Bhavan’s babus, however, have had no stomach for it. After China’s breathtaking Lhasa line and India’s own spectacular rail road to Srinagar, under construction, why should an Indian rail line to Kathmandu be mission impossible?

Kashmir mobile

While India and Pakistan do all the talking on Kashmir, China acts. The recent Chinese projects in POK include the modernisation of the Karakoram Highway, bus services between Northern Areas and Xinjiang, and the Neelum-Jhelum Hydel project. The latest is the contract won by China Mobile to provide a cellular service in POK and Northern Areas. China Mobile has been mandated to provide coverage along the Karakoram Highway.

The writer is professor, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore