Shinzo Abe in India: Japan trying to contain China says Beijing media

With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visiting India with big-ticket deals for bullet trains and defence exports on the agenda, the media in Beijing has accused Tokyo of courting India "to contain and besiege China".
There was, however, "no need for China to be too concerned" as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government  was "quite cautious" in balancing ties with Beijing and Tokyo, wrote Zhao Gancheng, a leading South Asia expert at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, in a commentary in the Communist Party-run Global Times, a tabloid known for hard-line views.
Zhao said "Abe will not miss any chance to draw Modi over to his side to counter China," which explains why Tokyo would offer "generous terms" to New Delhi in securing a first ever bullet train contact, beating competition from China.
Yet on security matters, the view in Beijing is that despite India taking forward closer ties with Tokyo in the past year, for instance by inviting Japan to take part in annual Malabar naval exercises with the United States after a gap of many years - a move that concerned Beijing - India "has no intention to take sides between China and Japan, aware that setting itself against Beijing will bring no good to New Delhi".
Zhao argued, "India is hoping to hitchhike on China's rise to obtain more economic benefits, and thus is unwilling to offend the world's second largest economy. Knowing that China-Japan relationship is far from perfect, the Indian government is cautious in developing its ties with Tokyo, so as to leave itself some leeway in handling its relations with Beijing."
"Given its high expectations toward investments from both Japan and China," he concluded, "New Delhi is attempting to strike a balance between the two countries."

Hameed Haroon, the CEO of Pakistan-based Dawn Media group said that there was need for a greater understanding of the common history of India and Pakistan and to allow greater interaction between academics of the two countries.
“In 1947, we faced partition but the bigger and far more harmful partition was in 1965 when intellectuals of the two countries were cut off. Till now no one speaks about this tragedy. How will we understand each other without studying our common heritage. There is a need to allow greater interaction among the academia of the two countries,” said Haroon, who is in Mumbai on an invitation from the Observer Research Foundation.

Haroon said that citizens of the two countries were psychologically dependent on each other, and drew a list of instances of the shared heritage between the two countries. People of the two countries had a common heritage dating back to the eight millennium BC, he said.
“We are part of one psychological dependency. Indians can’t be holy without Pakistan and the Pakistanis cannot be holy without Indians,” Haroon said.
“In Pakistan, students are taught that Pakistan was created in 712 when Muhammad Bin Kasim invaded Sind. They believe that the Mughal territory was located in Pakistan. If this is the type of history that we teach, what kind of people are we creating. What is happening in your country is similar, albeit in a far more sophisticated way,” Haroon said.
He also spoke about the need to allow each generation in both countries to participate collectively in the shared heritage of their forefathers considering that in terms of reconciliation, African nations seemed to have stolen a march over India and Pakistan.
The ORF said it planned to start a Mumbai Karachi Friendship Forum, which would bring people from the two cities together. As part of the initiative, the forum is planning to display Marathi as well as Gujarati films in Karachi. The city has groups of ethnic minorities which still speak these languages in Pakistan. Sudheendra Kulkarni, Chairman of ORF, Mumbai said that the Shiv Sena had threatened to teach a lesson to those who invited Pakistanis into the country.
“The best way of neutralizing this threat is holding functions with Pakistanis again and we have done it. Mumbai will never surrender to those who want to safeguard this wall of separation,” he said adding the consulates of both the countries in Mumbai and Karachi should be opened soon.
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Pakistani media today welcomed the resumption of Indo-Pak comprehensive dialogue, describing it as a “major breakthrough” and a pleasant turn in bilateral ties following three top-level meetings in 10 days.
The decision to resume the talks was taken yesterday during visit of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here and her meeting with Pakistani leaders.

Dawn reported that in a “major breakthrough”, Pakistan and India announced that they were resuming the dialogue on outstanding issues, ending a two-year logjam.
“The ‘Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue’ as it has been named will include all elements covered under the previous versions of the talks — peace and security, confidence-building measures, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage / Tulbul Navigation Project, economic and commercial cooperation, counter-terrorism, narcotics control and humanitarian issues, people-to-people exchanges and religious tourism,” it reported.
Under the headline ‘Breakthrough at last’, The Express Tribune wrote that “ten days and three meetings — that’s all it took Pakistan and India to break the deadlock in their strained relations”.
It further said that a “chance meeting” between Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan in Paris and surprise talks between their National Security Advisers in Bangkok led to a formal meeting between their top foreign policy officials in Islamabad on Wednesday which produced a major agreement: resumption of a stalled dialogue process.
The Nation’s headline: ‘Composite dialogue goes comprehensive’ captured the essence of new format of talks which will be not much different than the one suspended after Mumbai attack.
“All the pillars of the composite dialogue would be part of the comprehensive bilateral dialogue and more things could be added to it,” it wrote.
The paper commenting on Swaraj’s meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that they agreed on increased contacts at all level and resolving all the outstanding issues between the two nuclear neighbours through dialogue, during the meeting which lasted for almost an hour.
“Premier Nawaz Sharif said that Pakistan wanted good relations with all its neighbours including India which was reciprocated by Indian minister. Sushma confirmed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Pakistan next year for the SAARC summit expected to be held in September 2016,” it said.
The News International termed that start of dialogue as a ‘pleasant turn’ in ties of the two nations.
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