New Delhi, Oct. 6: Delhi has shot down Beijing’s proposals to teach Chinese in schools here and take Indian students to China under exchange programmes, the rejections coming in the wake of the neighbour issuing "stapled" visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir.
The veto of the plans, mooted as part of the celebrations to mark 60 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries next year, comes amid indications that preparations for President Pratibha Patil’s visit to China early next year have been slowed, too, sources said.
Last week, New Delhi had protested China’s move to issue visas on separate pieces of paper stapled to the passport — the standard practice is to stamp it on the passport — of visitors from Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi saw in the step an attempt by Beijing to question Jammu and Kashmir’s status as an integral part of India and endorse ally Pakistan’s stand.
Officially, the ministry of external affairs said the proposals for teaching Chinese and student visits were "unacceptable". China had initially suggested that its teachers would come to India to teach the language.
Later, Beijing modified its proposal and said that "it will be a locally administered programme", the sources said. This meant that while Chinese teachers would have come here, the control of the programme would be in Indian hands.
The Kashmir visa provocation may have acted as an unstated flashpoint but Delhi seems to have had other misgivings, too. Indian officials also suspected a Chinese design to spread its "soft power" — widening influence by using culture as a tool — by camouflaging the Confucius Institute in the language proposal.
The institute, started in 2004, has a presence in 50 countries, including the US, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But the institute’s two pilot centres in India — based in the Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu and Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University — have not made much progress so far.
The Confucius Institute, a non-profit body based in Beijing and working like the American Center, was conceived to promote Chinese culture and language across the world. But there has been concern in various quarters about the institute’s real aim.
Among those who have cast doubts is the Canadian Security Intelligence, which said in a declassified intelligence report: "China wants the world to have positive feelings towards China and things Chinese, which… (is a sign of) a desire for soft power."
On Pratibha’s visit, the sources said the external affairs ministry had got "some valid excuse" from the Presidents’ office for slowing down the preparations. The President’s office, the sources said, has made it known that Pratibha will not be free till this month’s elections in Haryana and Maharashtra. That leaves some time, but such trips require elaborate planning over several months.
"The visit will eventually happen. But not much progress is taking place now. The visit is reciprocal. We also expect a high-profile visit from the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party," said a diplomatic source.
