NEW DELHI, MARCH 27 : Irked by China repeatedly changing dates for a high-level meeting between Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and his Chinese counterpart, the Commerce Ministry has shot off a sharply worded letter to Beijing asking it to make up its mind on the dates before inviting India to the table. Nath was to attend the meeting after China invited him to take forward negotiations between the two Asian giants for a regional trade pact.

Originally scheduled for next Wednesday, April 2, the meeting has now been put off for ‘later’ by India. “It is your invitation, you set the dates. If you keep changing the dates as you are now, let’s meet later, make up your mind first. This is not the way countries deal with each other,” Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai is learnt to have written to the Chinese after they tried to reschedule the meeting at least four times in the span of two days.

While the Indian side was comfortable with the original date of April 2, the Chinese requested for a change, arguing that the Chinese Communist Party Congress was scheduled for the same day. They requested that the meeting be rescheduled for the afternoon of April 1, followed by a dinner hosted by Chinese minister Chen Deming.

Scheduled to reach China on the morning of April 1, the Indian delegation agreed to attend the meeting a few hours after it landed. But the Chinese came back with a new problem — their minister was required to go overseas that day. After another date was suggested and dropped, the Chinese finally suggested April 4 and 5 for the meeting.

This was inconvenient to India as Nath is scheduled to be in Singapore at the time with his Cabinet colleague Tourism Minister Ambika Soni. The two also have a dinner scheduled with the Singapore Prime Minister. While conveying the Indian side’s inability to make it on those dates, the Commerce Secretary let the Chinese know that India was not happy by the turn of events.