With Copenhagen summit providing India and China the much-needed turn around in their relations after a public spat over Arunachal Pradesh, the two sides will try to use External Affairs Minister S M Krishna's April 5 visit to firm up the understanding and not let tensions return to haunt their ties.
Highly-placed sources said India and China would focus on strengthening bilateral issues and discuss about cooperation on various issues during Krishna's maiden visit beginning April 5.
They told PTI that the general perception in the two countries is that the spat through public statements over Arunachal Pradesh and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's visit there have not benefitted either of them.
"There is a fairly strong interest in both the governments not to see a repeat of the 2009 phase. The two sides will make use of Krishna's visit to take the relationship forward and not dwell on past issues," sources said.
They also say Chinese officials feel Krishna provided a "calming influence" on the bilateral ties during 2009 and a number of meetings between Krishna and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of several international meets also helped.
Krishna, who will arrive here on April 5 on a four-day visit, is scheduled to hold discussions with Yang and may meet Premier Wen Jiabao.
The cooperation forged by the two countries at the Copenhagen Climate Summit brought about the much needed "turn around between the two countries", the sources said. India,
China, South Africa and Brazil hammered out a deal at the December summit, which was taken note by the conference.
In October last year, China and India were engaged in a public spat with both issuing statements against each other over Chinese claims of Arunachal Pradesh.
This year, the two sides also made efforts to iron out differences on a number of issues including converting the business visas of over 25,000 Chinese workers to employment visas.
India by and large managed to convince the Chinese on the need for visa regime as well as continued India's interest in Chinese industrial products, the sources said.
During his visit, Krishna is also scheduled to kick off the celebrations to mark the 60th year of diplomatic relations and speak at the Chinese Institute of Strategic Studies on India-China relations.
