Pre-State dinner, Indian PM chews up China

Washington: With a most unusual State dinner being prepared for his formal welcome tomorrow by US president Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama - which will include a tent, or shamiana, reminiscent of Indian settings - Indian PM Dr Manmohan Singh decided to have China as pre-meal snacks. Speaking before a respected Washington think-tank on Monday evening Dr Singh made a pointed reference to the much touted Chinese rate of growth as something achieved without consideration for values.

In candid remarks made to the audience, Dr Singh also admitted that lately, ''there is a certain amount of assertiveness on the Chinese part. I don't fully understand the reasons for it."

Touching on the most obvious point of comparison between China and India - indeed between China and any nation - which is their respective rates of economic growth, Singh said while there was no doubt that Chinese performance was superior to India's, ''there are other values which are important than the growth of Gross Domestic Product.''

''I think the respect for fundamental human rights, the respect for the rule of law, respect

for multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious rights, I think those have values. So, even the Indian performance, with regard to the GDP, might not be as good as the Chinese, certainly I would not like to choose the Chinese path," he said.

Though he savaged the much-touted Chinese economic model, Dr Singh also had some soothing comments to make about its giant northern neighbour, saying that India, along with the rest of the world was interested in China's peaceful rise as a major power. ''So, engagement is the right strategy for India as well as for United States...We ourselves have tried very hard to engage China in the last five years and today China is one of our major trading partners,'' he said.