India, China defence ties hit by visa denial to top general

Lt Gen B. S. Jaswal

India has reacted strongly to China's refusal of permission to Lt Gen B S Jaswal, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Northern Command, to visit that country because he is in charge of the Army's operations in Jammu and Kashmir.

Consequently, India is understood to have put on hold permission to two Chinese defence officials who were due to attend a course at the National Defence College in the capital. A planned visit by Indian military officials to China has also been postponed, sources said.

China has, in recent times, been refusing to issue visas to Indians from Jammu and Kashmir on their passports because it considers the state as a "disputed" area. Instead, the visas are issued on loose sheets of paper which are stapled to the passports of the applicants.

India has objected to this practice several times and also made it clear that immigration authorities at the airport would not allow people with such "stapled" visas to travel to China.

Asked about the denial of permission to Lt Gen Jaswal, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr Vishnu Prakash, said the visit had not taken place "due to certain reasons".

"While we value our exchanges with China, there must be sensitivity to each others' concerns. Our dialogue with China on these issues is ongoing," Mr Prakash said.

"We have an important, multi-facted and complex relationship with the People's Republic of China Our interaction has been growing in a number of areas, including defence. In recent years, we have had useful defence exchanges at various levels," he said.

According to various sources, the two countries had some time ago on a visit to China by a senior officer from India, but no name had been finalised. When India proposed Lt Gen Jaswal's name, China had apparently expressed its reservations and wanted another officer to be nominated in his place. India, in turn, has made it clear that the Chinese stand on this was unacceptable.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said India should take a firm and unambiguous stand in the matter.

Another BJP leader, Mr Yashwant Sinha, also a former External Affairs Minister, felt India should retaliate in kind and send a strong message that it would not take such pinpricks.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari said bilateral relations should be based on mutual self-respect.

NNN