Cotton- Soft Corner for Industry


There have been enough 'gestures' on this count from both sides. Despite the open commitment in the election manifesto of the Congress (I) to recognise the Heng Samrin regime in Kampuchea, such a recognition has not been forthcoming even six months after Indira Gandhi's return to power. Indira Gandhi's views on Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan when she was out of power do present a contrast to her actions in this regard since she assumed office; and both during the visit of Soviet foreign minister to New Delhi and the Indian foreign minister's visit to Moscow, Indian reservations about the Soviet action have been made plain. Indeed, the Indian foreign minister's statement in the Lok Sabha on his return from Moscow earlier this month was an usually candid assessment of the Soviet actions in Afghanistan and their implications for South Asia. India has also, at least for the present, refrained from taking advantage of the domestic difficulties of the Zia regime in Pakistan and here again, Indira Gandhi's remarks about the regime when she was out of power do present a contrast to her official reactions since she returned to power. China too. for its part, has been more than generous in its friendly gestures, the most notable of which has been the silence, during Zia-ul-Haq's visit to Beijing earlier this year, when in response to his banquet speech where Zia made the mandatory reference to Pakistan's dispute with India over Jammu and Kashmir, his hosts did not take note of the reference, in their reply. Another interesting shift has been the Xinhua report on Pham Van Dong's visit in April to "the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir" which was later 'corrected' to "the part of Kashmir under Indian control". Both the first reference, and, even more so, the 'correction', cannot have been accidental, and it is interesting that the 'correction' speaks only of 'Kashmir' and not 'Jammu and Kashmir' and refers to it as being 'under Indian control' and not under 'Indian occupation', However, there still appears to be an excessive caution on the part of policy-makers in India about normalising relations with China. Virtually every statement expressing the government's desire to improve relations with China is accompanied with the qualification that such a thing would not be at the cost of 'relations with other countries, or even, specifically, the Soviet Union. There is hardly any need for such reiteration; neither China nor the Soviet Union, despite the very fundamental differences that divide them