Chinese investment likely focus of Jintao's visit

Refusal of work permits to Chinese workers and denial of projects to Chinese companies due to security concerns will come up for discussion during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to India in the third week of November.

The two sides will address these "irritants" in a joint statement to be issued at the end of Jintao's visit. This was assured by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, who called on them on his return from China after a ten-day visit.

Yechury, who met the prime minister on Wednesday, called on Mukherjee today and apprised him of his talks with the Chinese leaders. He also told him of the Left parties' views on Sino-Indian relations.

Yechury told Mukherjee that the Left parties were with the government on the issue but concerns about national security "should be sector-specific and not country-specific'.

If a Chinese company was not allowed to take up a project at Vizhinjam in Kerala because it was also involved in a project in Pakistan, the same yardstick should be applied to companies from other countries which were operating in Pakistan, Yechury said at these meetings.

He reminded Mukherjee that it was the Left parties who had first raised the issue of security threat due to FDI in telecom.

Border dispute was a legacy of history and should be resolved through talks, but at the same time the two countries should strive towards closer partnership in other areas, he said.

India had an important role in converting the two triangles- India-China-Russia and India-Brazil-South Africa- into a "pentagon" to ensure multilaterism as against the existing unilateral global order marked by US dominance, Yechury told Mukherjee.