Longtime rivals India, China sign accords

NEW DELHI -- The leaders of India and China yesterday announced a new ''strategic and cooperative partnership" aimed at strengthening economic and political ties between the Asian nations.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, oversaw the signing of agreements on border issues, trade, and the development of new energy resources to bolster their booming economies. They also called for cooperation in fields such as software, agriculture, and health care.

''India and China can together reshape the world order," Singh said after a ceremony welcoming Wen to India's presidential palace.

The longtime rivals are the world's most populous nations, and together they account for 2.3 billion people, nearly a third of the world's population.

The agreements herald an important shift in relations between India and China. They fought a brief border war in 1962 and have long regarded each other with suspicion, but more recently they have come to recognize their common interests as emerging economic and military powers.

In particular, each country is eager to capitalize on the other's economic strength -- manufacturing and computer hardware in China, services and software in India -- while boosting trade that by all accounts has remained far below its potential.

Economic motives aside, China also wants better relations with India because it is competing for influence with Washington, which was several years ahead of Beijing in recognizing India's potential as a military and economic power and has greatly increased the level of its cooperation with India in both spheres.

India, for its part, sees advantage in better relations with China because of Beijing's long record of support for Pakistan, including the sharing of missile technology, and its rapid military buildup, which potentially threatens India's interests in the Indian Ocean.

Indian officials also were gratified by what they said was Wen's expression of support for New Delhi's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

''Everybody started talking about the rise of China a long time ago, and now they're talking about the rise of India, so I think there's a shared sense that something terribly important is now happening," said Vinod C. Khanna, a former Indian diplomat who served in China and once ran the East Asia division of India's Foreign Ministry.

Wen has been to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka in recent days, hoping to reassure its neighbors that increasing clout does not make it a regional danger.

''Some people are worried that a stronger and more developed China would pose a threat to other countries. Such worry is completely misplaced," Wen said during a meeting of Asian officials in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, last week.

Trade between India and China last year amounted to a relatively modest $13.6 billion, but the figure is growing rapidly. Both sides pledged yesterday to boost the number to $20 billion by 2008. China is particularly interested in India's success in information-technology services, which is one reason why Wen started his visit in Bangalore, India's high-technology hub.

''If India and China cooperate in the IT industry, we will be able to lead the world," he said Sunday.

China is keen to develop a free trade area between the two countries. During their talks, Wen and Singh agreed to set up a panel to study the feasibility and benefits of establishing such an area.

The agreements do not involve defense arrangements and will not give Chinese ships the use of Indian ports.

An 11-point plan to settle the long border dispute was finalized Sunday at a meeting between India's national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan, and China's vice foreign minister, Dai Bingguo, the leader of Beijing's delegation to the talks.

The plan states that the countries would consider historical factors, geographical features, people living in the area, security, and whether the region was currently under Indian or Chinese control.

India says China still holds 16,000 square miles of its territory in the Kashmir region, while Beijing lays claim to a wide swath of land in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which shares a 650-mile border with China's Tibet region.

China also recognized the Himalayan territory of Sikkim, located between Nepal and the kingdom of Bhutan, as a part of India. Sikkim was an independent principality before it was annexed by India in 1975, a move China never recognized.

Information from the Associated Press was included in this report.