Nothing off table with China: India

Bengaluru, Oct. 26: India’s external affairs minister S.M. Krishna served up an ace a day before he plays host at the ninth trilateral Russia-India-China summit in this technology capital by restating India’s position on the status of Tibet as an integral part of China, effectively taking the sting out of the Chinese, while also saying that “nothing is off the table” when he meets his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi for a one-on-one.

Mr Krishna was responding to a question on whether the question of Arunachal Pradesh and the separate visas for Kashmiri Indians would be discussed when he meets Mr Jiechi on the sidelines of the summit on Tuesday.

“We have accepted that Tibet is a part of China,” Mr Krishna said in an exclusive interview to this newspaper as his high-profile guests arrived in the city ahead of a trilateral that is rapidly assuming bilateral status as simmering tensions between Beijing and New Delhi are expected to dominate the summit.

The Indian and Chinese ministers are scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. No such bilateral has so far been set up with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, with external affairs ministry officials saying none was necessary as Mr Krishna had only recently returned from Moscow.

Mr Krishna, echoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Hua Hin, Thailand, was equally unsubtle about Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, setting off speculation that the Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, on November 8 was on the backburner. Only weeks ago, Mr Krishna had described the Tibetan spiritual leader as “an
honoured guest who could visit any part of India”. At Hua Hin and now again in Bengaluru, the official line on the Dalai Lama shifted ever so slightly.

While continuing to describe him in the same tone, Mr Krishna said on the eve of the trilateral: “The Dalai Lama is a holy man. He’s considered a spiritual leader. He is loved and revered by millions of Indians as well as Tibetans and he is our guest. Period.”