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`World must prepare for peaceful rise of China,' says PM | Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who is on a four-day visit to Washington, has said that while there is a degree of uncertainty on the part of China vis-à-vis resolving issues with India, he does not understand the reasons behind it. Indulging in some plain speaking and suggestive sarcasm while speaking
about China, Dr. Singh told Richard Haas, president of the Council of Foreign
Relations (CFR) here that relations between New Delhi and Beijing have been progressing
well over the last five years, hiccups notwithstanding. Candidly admitting that
both countries still have differences over the "border problem", Singh said that
he was hopeful about resolving the decades-old issue through dialogue at various
levels. However, he said, China's growth as an economic power must be recognised
and the rest of the world must engage with it. "We want the world to prepare for
the peaceful rise of China as a major power. Engagement is the right strategy,
both for India and the United States. It has been very hard to engage China in
the last five years. We have to recognise that the border problem exists, and
that we must resolve it through dialogue. India and China are aware that peace
and tranquillity should be maintained," said Singh. He also said there was no
doubt that the Chinese growth performance is better and superior than India's.
On G-20, he cracked a joke when asked whether it could get political muscle he
mentioned what Canadian premier had to say He went that extra mile to say that
GDP did not mean development. "I have always believed there are other values to
GDP growth. It is important to respect fundamental rights, the rule of law, multi-cultural,
multiethnic and multi-religious rights. These have values also. There are several
dimensions to human freedom, which are not always linked to GDP," Dr. Singh said.
"I would not like to chose the Chinese path. I will prefer to stick to the India
path. India may appear as an indecisive democracy at times, but I have seen many
democracies having short term maximisers. I also believe that once a democracy
decides, any reforms taken, will be far more durable, will be far more effective
than reforms introduced by a ruling writ in an undemocratic set-up," he said.
India unlike China was not dependent on external stimulants for its growth. On
the question of the progress or lack of it at the Doha round of WTO talks, Dr.
Singh reiterated India's view that multilateral trade systems should work without
distorted tariffs, and added that the tight system of trade and tariff regime
prevailing in the West and Europe, would not work in India. He also said that
the possibility always exists for exploring an FTA between India and the United
States. Asked what were key drawbacks preventing Indian economic growth in the
new millennium, he said there were three that concerned him - poor infrastructure,
inadequate skills formation and a poor standard of human resource development
and education. |
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