Why has the Chinese leadership fallen in love with India? I asked the prime minister about this on the way back from Beijing. After his interaction with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, why did he think there was such a sudden impetus to have better relations with India at the highest levels of the Chinese leadership?
This is Dr Singh's assessment: "I have always said that the world respects strength, it does not respect the meek. If India is strong economically, politically, socially, the world will respect us more and more and will take note of our concerns. Our economy is doing very well in recent years. The growth rate of 9% per annum, the growth of our industries like IT, pharmaceuticals are convincing more and more countries in the world that engaging India is in their interest. When I addressed businessmen from India I told them engaging China for India is a historic responsibility and a historic necessity. I am tremendously impressed by their (Hu and Wen's) wisdom and depth of their knowledge of various issues. They (China) have understood that engaging India is a historic necessity and in the interest of China."
Complete Coverage: Dr Singh in China
A senior Indian diplomat, present at all the prime minister's meetings, believes the level of understanding that the India-China relationship is important and how it can influence the world is new for the Chinese leadership, and is a phenomenon the Indians have not encountered before.
"This trip establishes that it is China and India, not China versus India," says Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who calls Dr Singh's visit to Beijing "one of his most successful visits." Both countries realise they are the engines of global economic growth, Kamal Nath added, and know they need to work together to tackle uncertainties in the world.
Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon -- who spent a part of his childhood in Beijing where his father was a senior diplomat, speaks Mandarin and is one of the Foreign Service's China specialists -- believes India and China now have the ability to discuss all aspects of the relationship, "the easy, the difficult and the promising" with maturity. The bilateral relationship, he says, has "grown very rapidly" since Wen visited India in April 2005 and Hu came by in November 2006.
"It is a positive sum game," the foreign secretary added, "there is a higher level of confidence. We have complicated issues, but we have found ways of making progress."
The personal dynamics between the prime minister and the top Chinese leadership is said to be without parallel in India-China history, but can the generational Indian psyche, still wounded by the betrayal of 1962, accept the Chinese warmth for what it is worth?
Can we trust the Chinese?
Strangely, the 'T' word was used by Chinese Premier Wen in his remarks at the joint media briefing on January 14. "We must respect each other, understand each other," Wen said using words one hasn't heard from a Chinese leader in a long time, "We must trust each other and work with each other for mutual benefit and progress."
"The Chinese are very good at boosting people (leaders)," one China watcher in New Delhi said before the visit, "The keyword in diplomacy is reciprocity. We seek equality with China, but China wants to confine India to South Asia."
Image: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao hosted two dinners for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The first, a private dinner attended by just 14 guests, was a first in India-China relations. Never has an Indian leader been accorded such an honour. The second was a State banquet, attended by about 70 guests. Photograph: Jay Mandal/On Assignment
Also read: A millennia-old tussle
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