INDIA-CHINA 2

Indian Foreign Secretary underlined the need for a
"laser-like" focus in areas like science and technology, which
"regretfully" have seen little cooperation.
She noted that science and technology was one of the
areas of cooperation agreed upon during the 2006 visit of
Chinese President Hu Jintao.
"Regretfully, one must say that we have not been able
to record any significant achievement in that area," she said.
"We need to be more laser-like, looking at the areas
that need a sharper focus in the relationship," Rao said.
She said negotiations on the boundary question have a
certain momentum and both the countries have maintained peace
and tranquillity along the common border for many decades now.
"That itself is a signal achievement. In the noise of
public opinion, some of these aspects tend to be ignored or
tend to be glossed over. But these are significant
achievements in every sense of the word," Rao said.
She said Chinese project contracts in India have
touched 25 billion dollars
Noting that there has been a significant increase in
the volume of trade between the two countries, she said India
looked forward to more Chinese investments in the
infrastructure sector.
"We need greater synergy and dialogue to explore the
lessons that we could draw from the Chinese model of
infrastructure development for the benefit of the business and
engineering community of the countries," she said.
Rao expressed satisfaction over CBSE introducing
Chinese language in school curricula and noted that Hindi
language and India studies were being taught in several
Chinese universities.
"We need more intellectual rigour when it comes to
studying each other. It is not just dealing with strategy or
dealing with confidence building in defence or security
spheres or coming up with solutions to the boundary question.
There is much more than that" (to the relationship), she said.
Rao said India and China need to adopt a scientific
approach while studying each other.
She said the two countries had made significant
achievements in their relationship since the visit of the then
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988.
"We were able to create a paradigm of how to build
this relationship," Rao said, adding the visit was a mutual
acknowledgement of the fact that the two countries needed to
engage with each other.
"I think that has been the effort in the last
two-and-a-half decades to construct a certain framework of
relationship that goes beyond the unresolved issues or
outstanding issues and buttressing the relationship by
increasing interaction in trade, commerce, industry and
exchange of people," Rao said. MORE PTI