BEIJING,Febrauary29.2012: Chinese vice president Xi Jinping, who has visited almost every major country in recent months, is now expected to skip India before the Communist Party of China begins the process of electing him as the general secretary and the country's president in an election scheduled later this year. The move will have major policy implications for India. This is evident from CPC's decision to dispatch foreign minister Yang Jeichi, who arrives in New Delhi on Wednesday. This will be followed by the visit of Chinese president Hu Jintao, who will come to the Indian capital to attend the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) Summit next month. The Yang visit will definitely push back a possible trip by Xi in his position as Chinese vice president if not entirely curtails it, sources said. "Yang Jeichi's visit will be followed by another visit by the Chinese president next month. There will be little time left for Xi to visit India because he will get busy with the organizing of the 18th party congress later this year," Srikant Kondapalli, professor at the Center for East Asia Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru Univrsity told. If Xi skips New Delhi before the next CPC elections, it will result in the next Chinese government assuming power without direct knowledge of India by its new president. He has not visited India since he last came to New Delhi in his position as governor of Fujian province in the early 1990s. This is significant because Xi is the topmost policy maker for Tibet and issues concerning the Dalai Lama.
Salman Haider, former foreign secretary cautioned against speculating over Xi's reasons to ignore an India visit. "We should not rush to draw conclusions from this visit without carefully analyzing the sequence of high level visits," he told this correspondent. Yang's visit comes soon after the recent China tour by Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna. The Chinese president will be visiting India after a gap of seven years. India's President Pratibha Patil visit Beijing in 2010. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited China in 2009 and 2011 while premier Wen Jiabao visited India in 2005 and 2010.
