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India and China, two very large nations of the world with centuries-old civilisations, share a unique history and similar objectives. Sustained economic and social development of the two countries will strengthen multipolarity, and be pivotal in ensuring peace, stability and prosperity not only in Asia but also globally.
Premier Wen Jiabao’s forthcoming visit to India, in April 2005, will give a fillip to the enduring relationship that these two nations share. Wen, a native of Tianjin, joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in April 1965 and began working in September 1967. A postgraduate and engineer, Wen graduated with a major in geological structure from the Beijing Institute of Geology. He presided over the Geomechanics Survey Team under the Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau and served as the head of its political section. Rising as chief of the Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau and later as minister for the natural resources sector of the economy, Wen would rise through the ranks of the Politburo Central Committee in the 1980s and 1990s. Wen’s move from Gansu to Beijing occurred while the party, then under the leadership of General Secretary Hu Yaobang, was conducting a talent search; Wen was quickly promoted to serve as the deputy in the Party’s Central Office. He remained in the post for eight years.
Wen Jiabao is the only Standing Committee member to have served under three party secretaries: Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, and Jiang Zemin. A political survivor, his most significant recovery was after 1989, when Wen was the head assistant to General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. He accompanied then Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang to Tiananmen Square.
Wen, a strong administrator and technocrat, has earned a reputation for meticulousness, competence, and a focus on tangible results. Outgoing Premier Zhu Rongji showed his esteem for Wen by entrusting him, from 1998, with the task of overseeing agricultural, financial and environmental policies, considered crucial as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization.
The Chinese government under Wen has begun to focus on the social costs of economic development, which includes damage to the environment and to worker’s health. This more comprehensive definition of development has been encapsulated into the idea of a ‘xiaokang’ society–a society is one in which most people are moderately well off. Wen’s broad range of experience and expertise, especially cultivated while presiding over agricultural policies under Zhu Rongji, has been important as the “fourth generation” seeks to revitalize the rural economy in regions left out by the past two decades of reform.
Regarded as being quiet and unassuming, he is said to be a good communicator and is known as a “man of the people”. Wen has appeared to make great efforts to reach out to those who seem left out by two decades of stunning economic growth in rural and especially Western China. Unlike Jiang Zemin and his protégés on the Politburo Standing Committee, who form the so-called “Shanghai clique”, both Wen and Hu hail from, and have cultivated their political bases in, the vast Chinese interior. Many have noted the contrasts between Wen and Hu, “men of the people” and Jiang Zemin, the flamboyant, multilingual, and urbane former mayor of the country’s most cosmopolitan city.
Like President Hu Jintao, whose purported brilliance and photographic memory have facilitated his meteoric rise to power, Wen is regarded as being well-equipped to preside over a vast bureaucracy in the world’s most populated and perhaps rapidly changing nation.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao foresees greater coordination between Beijing and New Delhi on multilateral trade issues to ensure a ‘fair, just and rational’ global trade regime. “Bilateral trade and economic cooperation have grown rather rapidly in recent years — expanding from pure import and export of commodities to multifaceted and multidimensional cooperation including engineering contracting, technology trade and two-way investment,” Wen told PTI.
“The Chinese side is of the view that the new round of multilateral trade negotiations should be conducive to a new international economic order that is fair, just and rational; should strike a balance between the interests of the developed and developing members; and should take into full consideration the development level of the developing countries,” Wen said.
Noting that China and India have many strong points of their own, Wen elaborated, “They are quite complementary economically. And they both have broad domestic markets. However, the scope of their economic cooperation remains far from being commensurate with their full economic strengths. The Chinese government is encouraging well-placed Chinese enterprises to work with their Indian counterparts and also welcomes investment and business ventures in China by Indian firms.”
To boost bilateral relations, India and China have agreed to hold regular high-level talks, which will greatly enhance mutual understanding and further cooperation. Both countries are attaching great importance to the visit of H.E. Wen Jiabao to India and have agreed to work together to ensure that it leads to a “substantive outcome”. In Bangalore his focus would be on IT, and in New Delhi he will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the external affairs minister, and other senior officials. Annual meetings between Foreign Ministers of the two countries, personnel exchanges and friendly contacts between ministries, parliaments and political parties of the two countries would also be enhanced.
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