Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will presumably brief Russian President Putin about the ensuing meeting with Chinese Premier Li Kiqiang and possibly impress upon the latter to use his influence on the Chinese Premier to deal with India in a more friendly and realistic basis

En route to Beijing, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his entourage will spend a couple of days in Moscow when he will be closeted with Russian president, Vladmir Putin, on 21^st October to discuss various issues. Ostensibly, it is expected to cover finalisation of arrangements for the Kudankulam units no 3 and no 4 in Tamil Nadu. But, at the back of his mind, the prime minister (PM) will presumably brief Mr Putin about the ensuing meeting with Chinese Premier, Li Kiqiang and possibly impress upon the latter to use his influence on the Premier to deal with India in a more friendly and realistic basis.

It may be noted that the annual bilateral meetings between India and Russia have been going on methodically for years now. It is the 10^th such meeting for both the PM and the Russian president!

When they met in 2010, an Indo-Russian roadmap was approved, which envisages the construction of 14 to 16 nuclear reactors in India. This means several decades of close association, considering it takes a minimum of five years for a project of this magnitude to fructify.

In pursuing the matter of supplying hydrocarbons, the issue of surface transportation from Russia via Afghanistan and Pakistan will come up prominently. This is a big question mark with Taliban at loggerheads with the Afghan government, American troops still being there and the uncertainty of Pakistani attitude in such pipe line matters.

The PM then wings his way to meet the Chinese Premier for the second time in less than six months and continue his discussions. In reality, nothing happened, as border intrusions continued, unabated.

It is almost impossible to achieve anything in two days with anyone, particularly an intransigent state like China who has been bullying around the entire Far East. Except for North Korea, no other state in the region feels comfortable in dealing with China because of her action and attitude. Might is right, and money speaks!

In the past, Nehru-Chou En Lai's Pancha Sheela ended in disaster and now we have the PLA (People's Liberation Army) acts with impunity in violating the Line of Actual Control often. While lip service is given to such unfortunate incidents, with India playing it down most of the time, China continues to eye Arunachal Pradesh as its legitimate territory—35,000 sq miles—including a swath of territory near Bhutan and Bangladesh. Violation of airspace by Chinese helicopters also goes unchallenged.

According to Lt General Prakash Katoch, Indian Army I Corps, intrusion by Chinese

PLA, who have built infrastructures on Indian territory, was brought to the attention of General Chang Wanquan by our defence minister AK Antony, but nothing happened after that. It is a sad state of affairs.

So, Manmohan Singh has a long wish list that needs to be accepted by his Chinese counterpart. We may take this opportunity to summarise these as under:

(a) To reiterate that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India; we neither accept or appreciate the Chinese insults in issuing stapled visa to anyone visiting China from this state and China needs to accept status quo and respect the actual Line of Control of all Indian territories

(b) To establish a rupee-linked Yuan trade agreement, with an initial value of, say, $25 billion worth in rupees, fixing the exchange rate of say Rs10 equal to one Yuan. List of permissible items of import from both countries need to be identified and any transaction over this limit will involve settlement in a designated third currency like the dollar, pound or whatever

(c) To accord mutually acceptable areas of direct investments by either side without restrictions of the product or services to be rendered

(d) To seek China not to provide technical know-how and supplies of nuclear reactor technology to Pakistan and also in and around the Indian sub-continent

(e) To obtain commitment from China that they shall not any more build dams or do anything to divert the rivers like Brahmaputra which originates from China which may harm the riparian states, India and Bangladesh included

(f) To sign a friendship treaty based on equality and mutual support involving a No-War pact and first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances

(g) To garner support from China for inclusion of India as the 6^th permanent member of the Security Council in the United Nations exercising the veto power

Only when these are done, can India and China can look forward to peace, tranquillity and progress in the area. Such actions should be on a quid pro quo basis.

Not an easy task to accomplish, but a serious and sincere effort can be made by Manmohan Singh.

(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce. He was also associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts; and later to the US.)