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New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is hosting a special dinner and a cultural show in honour of Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi here today though the Indian leadership is also likely to express disappointment over Beijing's perceived negative role in the NSG.
Yang arrived in Kolkata on Saturday on a three-day official visit - his first as foreign minister.
In New Delhi, Yang will have talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mukherjee and senior officials in the foreign policy establishment.
The Chinese side has sought a meeting between Yang and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi but it has not been finalised.
Reports from Vienna suggested that China, which initially refrained from saying much on the India-specific waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers group (NSG), started playing an "active role" to try to block a consensus before the nuclear cartel decided to give India the waiver.
According to some media reports, when just three countries - Austria, Ireland and New Zealand -were still opposing a clean waiver for India on Friday night, the Chinese delegation saw a chance in blocking the waiver by asking the NSG not to hurry up the reports. It finally took a telephone call from US President George Bush to Chinese President Hu Jintao to melt Beijing's reluctance to the NSG waiver.
Quick reaction
National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan was quick to react after reports of Beijing's role in the NSG reached here.
"The Chinese foreign minister will come here and we will of course express disappointment. We will say we did not expect this from China," Narayanan told the Times Now channel.
He admitted that India was surprised by China because Chinese President Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao had assured Manmohan Singh that Beijing would play a positive role in the NSG.
The Chinese are saying they never tried to block the NSG waiver. The fact that the NSG finally gave India the waiver shows Beijing did not block it, Chinese sources said. They pointed out that China had only suggested that if no agreement can be reached within the two-day meeting of the NSG that began Thursday, another special session could be convened.
Experts are not surprised at what they call China's "shadow boxing" in the NSG, with some saying it may revive trust deficit between the two countries.
"It's going to widen a trust deficit. The Chinese have a lot of explanation to do on their position in the NSG, which was in some sense to be expected," Srikanth Kondappali, a China expert at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said.
"But at the same time we should remember that the Chinese have never been enthusiastic about the nuclear deal and have their fears that the deal may be used by the US to contain China," he said.
K. Subrahmanyam, a noted strategic expert, stressed that China needs to clear the air about these issues. "But we should not overreact. It may have been merely posturing to please their client Pakistan," he added.
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