This refers to the editorial "Mr Xi and Mr Modi" (September 16). The Xi-Modi meet comes with great expectations since both are in their sixties and elevated to top office within a year of each other. They are expected to be forward-looking and relatively free from the burdens of history. That said, our equations - be it with Pakistan or China - are necessarily entangled in a long and shared history of lost opportunities. Sadly, bipartite talks have always been hijacked by hawks. If an ascendant military contributes to a hard line in Pakistan, the Communist high echelons in China have had a set thought process.
The recent Chinese incursion and its timing on the eve of a dialogue is not new but for its uncomfortably bigger size. Will the two leaders be able to set their own rules of the game or will they be compelled to go along with the briefs given to them by their respective apex think tanks? China is India's largest trading partner, with both sides now looking to scale up bilateral trade from around $66 billion to $100 billion by 2015. If a major jump in mutual trade is being targeted, one can only hope that incursions such as these form a necessary but smaller part of a larger and productive agenda.
R Narayanan Ghaziabad
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