The Sino-Indian border talks have moved onto the fast track, though dramatic achievements in the near future shouldn't be expected.

The 1962 Sino-Indian border war cast a long shadow over the bilateral relationship, but India and China have never dropped attempts to seek a fair and reasonable solution to their boundary issue. To date, official-level talks and expert panels have been held many times though no major breakthroughs have been made.

Since last year, China and India have picked up negotiation efforts, holding three rounds of talks at the level of special representative.

Analysts believed that this time India harboured a positive attitude towards settling the border issue, as was especially indicated by the latest appointment of J. N. Dixit, Indian national security adviser, as special representative for Sino-Indian boundary dialogues.

It is due to the joint efforts of the two country's leaders that the boundary talks can now be held at such a high level. During the summit between President Hu Jintao and then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Petersburg on May 31, 2003, Hu told Vajpayee that the Chinese leadership highly regards Sino-Indian relationship and is willing to enhance bilateral relations to a higher level. It was just after the meeting that Vajpayee made the decision to visit China.

During his visit, Vajpayee declared that India had discovered the way to settle the border dispute: adoption of political principles and designation of a special representative in charge of the issue.

In fact, Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, a renowned Indian expert on China issues, proposed solving the border issue from the political perspective long ago. In his eyes, without any treaty accepted by both sides as the basis for talks, China and India can only resort to political principles to settle the territorial disputes, because mere legal principles are not enough to tackle highly complicated boundary delimitation.

Analysts said considering that consultations carried out by experts have failed to achieve the desired results, the Indian Government has decided to replace the experts by putting the national security advisor in charge of consultations, which, to some extent, reaffirmed India's will to solve the territorial issue early.

In a sense, the major reason why India has expedited negotiations on the border issue is that the ruling parties and opposition parties there have converged on foreign policy and the Sino-Indian border issue.

With the rise of China, coupled with China's sincerity showed in developing Sino-Indian relations, India's perception of China has changed positively and the chilly bilateral relations have warmed up.

Against this background, New Delhi has positioned Sino-Indian relations as one of its most important bilateral ties and recognized China to be a major power. In addition, India has softened its tone on historical issues, defining the 1962 border war as a limited conflict rather than as an aggression against India initiated by China.

Of course, behind India's initiative of conciliation is its assertive national aspirations.

In recent years, India has pushed for a major power status. To this end, India has put forward a multi-faceted diplomacy, of which repairing relations with China is an important part.

In the past, India has considered China as its potential threat and main strategic rival. To balance China in South Asia, India has poured enormous amounts of resources into the military field, which, to a large extent, has affected its efforts to enhance its comprehensive national strength. The imbalanced input has confined the country to South Asia and constitutes a drag on its ambition to play a larger role in the world.

As the gap between China and India in comprehensive national strength widens, India has come to realize that it was a smart move to conciliate with rather than alienate China.

Also, restoration of relations with China is intended by India to use China as a counterbalance against the United States.

To maintain Indian-US relations, New Delhi sometimes needs to play the Beijing card when faced with pressures from the United States.

In the meantime, good Sino-Indian relations can help resolve India's disputes with Pakistan.

After the conflict with Pakistan in 1998, India found that China's role can contribute significantly to the improvement of its relations with Pakistan.

It should be noted that the Russian factor cannot be overlooked when it comes to the rapprochement between China and India.

After the foreign ministers of China, Russia and India held an informal meeting in September 2002, Russia has persuaded India to take a more positive attitude towards China in order to put the "strategic triangle," put forward by Russia, into effect.

From the perspective of India, a friendly gesture towards China is necessary to echo the appeal of Russia.

Although India and China have shown considerable sincerity and resolve in settling the boundary issue, it still takes some time for both sides to break the deadlock.

To this day, some people in India still list China as a potential threat, at least a main external challenge, to India. The theory of "China threat" will not disappear soon just because of a joint declaration.

Based on the experiences of the past talks, it would not be an easy task for India to establish the frame of mutual interests, mutual understanding, and mutual concession which can lead to the final settlement of the border issue.

More importantly, 130,000 Tibetans live in India and many are conducting separatist activities, which threatens directly the stability of Tibet and hence adds uncertainty to the security of the Southwest China.

Moreover, India's "parallel policy" towards China also constitutes an obstacle to resolving the boundary disputes.

Under the policy, India regards China's concession on the issue of boundary as a precondition for developing relations with China in other fields.

Its intention is to exact more territorial concessions from China.

Source: China Daily