Durban: In the first-high level contact after the leadership changes in China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Chinese President Xi Jinping and pledged to take the ties on a “higher growth trajectory” while raising the issue of Beijing’s plans to build three dams on the Brahmaputra river.
Singh called on Xi, who took over as President earlier this month as part of the once-in-a-decade change of guard in China, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit which the two leaders attended here.
This is the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders at the highest level. “The bilateral relationship with China is of great importance.
As the Prime Minister of India, it has been my great privilege to interact regularly with the Chinese leadership over the last decade,” Singh said. “I Hope to intensify such dialogue and communications with you and the new leadership of China to put our relationship on an even higher growth trajectory,” he added. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao and ex-Premier Wen Jiabao met with Singh more than 14 times in the last few years on the sidelines of BRICS and other international conferences. On his part, Xi hailed Singh as a statesman and noted that he had contributed a lot for bettering China-India ties. He said he would like to continue to build on that relationship with India. “Water was discussed,” official sources said tersely following the 25-minute meeting late last night after the summit without getting into specifics. The Prime Minister is understood to have conveyed to President Xi concerns in India over the Chinese proposal to construct three dams across Brahmaputra.
India has said the proposal would affect water flow to India while China says it was just run-of-the mill project that would not hold water. China is currently building dams at Dagu, Jiacha and Jiexu in addition to a 510 MW water project at Zangmu. India and China have an agreement on sharing the data of the Brahmaputra waters but do not have any treaty on sharing the river waters.
The entire expanse of the bilateral relationship was discussed and the meeting was very positive, the sources said. The two leaders expressed regards for each other.
All aspects of the relationship were discussed but the South China Sea issue was not touched, the sources said. Asked whether border and trade issues were discussed, the sources maintained that all aspects of bilateral relations came up for discussion. Both leaders expressed a desire to further strengthen the ties. (PTI)
