NEW DELHI, March 8 When the Chinese Special Representative Dai Bingguo arrives here on Friday for the next round of talks on the boundary dispute, India will have an opportunity to convey to China at the highest level that its growing relationship with the United States is not directed against Beijing.

India’s National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, who had a key role in the successful nuclear negotiations with the Bush administration, plans to take the Chinese envoy to his home state, Kerala, this weekend for a relaxed setting to quicken the pace of the boundary negotiations. Irrespective of the progress on the boundary talks, Narayanan has his task cut out in offering important political reassurances to his counterpart that there is no hidden agenda between New Delhi and Washington.

With or without the Left parties raising the bogey of India aligning with America against China, Beijing has been nervously following the Indo-US nuclear talks ever since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington in July last year.

While China has not formally criticised the Indo-US nuclear pact, Chinese media have raised questions about the American decision to make a nuclear exception for New Delhi and its impact on the global non-proliferation regime as well as on the Asian balance of power. At the meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group last October in Vienna, China took a back seat as some members raised probing questions about the Indo-US nuclear pact.

A few days ago, the Foreign Office spokesman in Beijing, when asked about the nuclear pact, said, ‘‘This cooperation must meet the requirements and provisions of the international non-proliferation regime and the obligations undertaken by all countries concerned.’’ He also added that as a signatory to the NPT, China ‘‘hoped that non-signatories can as nuclear-weapons free countries join in the treaty as soon as possible so as to make their contribution to the non-proliferation regime and peace and stability in the region and the world’’.

There is enough ambiguity in Beijing’s reaction to suggest enduring Chinese apprehensions about the Indo-US pact. Analysts here say Beijing might have concluded that the proposed nuclear cooperation was not an end itself. China might be concerned that the nuclear pact is really about clearing the path for a much deeper security relationship between India and the US amidst the new uncertainties in the ties between Washington and Beijing.

China would have a say in the NSG when it is convened in the next few months to endorse India’s nuclear separation plan. Whether Beijing eventually chooses to oppose the deal in a formal manner or raise the threat of a similar China-Pak civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, it is only proper that India fully brief the visiting Chinese envoy on Indo-US relations in the wake of President George W Bush’s visit.