PM’s Trip to China Starts May 14; Trade Deficit a Big Part of Agenda

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China next week with an agenda that includes trying to balance India’s trade deficit with its neighbour amid a continuing border dispute.

The PM will visit for three days starting Thursday, May 14. His trip follows a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to India in September, where the leaders of the world’s two most populous countries emphasised cooperation and business deals such as funding for railways.

Yesterday, the PM made his debut on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. It attracted some comments from Chinese users about a disputed part of Tibet belonging to China.

China is India’s biggest trading partner with two-way commerce totalling close to $70 billion. But India’s trade deficit with China has soared from just $1 billion in 2001-02 to more than $40 billion, Indian figures show.

Experts say PM Modi must bridge the deficit by seeking greater access to the Chinese market, with the two sides targeting annual bilateral trade of $100 billion this year.

But a border dispute rages on – the legacy of the war in 1962 over the state of Arunachal Pradesh, areas of which Beijing claims as part of Tibet.

Both sides accuse the other’s soldiers of crossing over into their territory.

PM Modi warned China to shed its “expansionist mindset” at an election rally last year.

India says China occupies 38,000 square km (14,600 sq miles) of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west. In September, the two armies faced off in the Ladakh sector in the western Himalayas just as Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting India for his summit talks with PM Modi.

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Source:Ndtv

P. M. Modi