BEIJING MEA NSBUSINESS
The dragon is reaching out. Fresh from border hostilities, China’s premier comes to India bearing an economic olive branch.
When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives in New Delhi on May 19, it will be as the leader of an invigorated state pursuing the so- called Chinese dream of prosperity and national pride.
With its top leadership for the next decade now firmly in place, the world’s second- largest economy is anxious to position itself as a world leader and distance itself from the United States. China is focusing instead on its nearabroad: First Moscow, where President Xi Jinping made his first state visit last month, and now New Delhi, its traditional regional rival, where China is looking to boost economic ties despite the long litany of political differences.
Yet China has chosen an unorthodox beginning to such a monumental state visit, clouding it with the most serious border incident between the two countries in decades. On April 15, a platoon of Chinese troops moved 19 km inside what India considers its area of administration, in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector of Ladakh. Then, with helicopter backing, they pitched tents to settle in.
While Indian television blasted warnings of Chinese aggression, back in Beijing, the government kept an unusual silence, with state media reporting only subdued accounts and officials denying the soldiers had strayed from what China sees as its territory.
The standoff between the People’s