China leader woos businesses

NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Li Keqiang of China spoke before a gathering of nearly 500 business leaders in the Indian capital Tuesday and said India and China must do business with each other.

In a reference to efforts by the United States to strengthen ties with India, in part to serve as a check on China, Li said a country can “choose its friends but not its neighbors.”

“There is a proverb in Chinese that a distant relative may not be as useful as a near neighbor,” Li said.

Officials in India have expressed appreciation that Li,who arrived in the country Sunday, decided to make India the first stop of his first foreign trip since assuming office in March.

But Indian leaders also have voiced deep concerns to the Chinese over a border spat that began April 15 in which nearly 50 Chinese troops camped for weeks on mountainous land in the Ladakh area of Kashmir that India claims as its own.

Referring to the dispute, Li told the business leaders that “we have not shied away from this question, but have agreed to push forward in resolving this question.”

In remarks after the address, India’s external-affairs minister, Salman Khurshid, said the Chinese had so far been unable or unwilling to tell the Indians why the incursion took place, but that the Indians had not asked Li directly.

China’s growing economic and military power and its increasing willingness to use those levers on the world stage have unnerved India’s leaders, who are almost wholly focused on domestic concerns.

China’s economy is nearly four times the size of India’s, its military spending is more than three times India’s and its foreign currency reserves are more than 11 times India’s.

Front Section, Pages 9 on 05/22/2013

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