Narayanan

New Delhi, March 8: National security adviser M.K. Narayanan, recently named ?special representative? to China, will have his first meeting with Beijing counterpart Dai Bing Guo in Delhi later this month.

China has welcomed Narayanan?s appointment and is keen the two leaders should meet at the earliest. Although dates have yet to be finalised, indications are the meeting will happen before Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao?s four-day visit to India next month.

The meeting is being seen as crucial as it will lay the groundwork and finalise the guidelines within which India and China will thrash out their decades-old boundary dispute.

The last special representatives? meeting between Dai and former national security adviser J.N. Dixit was held in Beijing in October. After that, meetings have been held only between senior officials of both countries.

The Chinese joint secretary of the policy planning division, Cui Tian Kai, is due to arrive in Delhi to finalise details of Wen?s visit starting April 9. Another team from China, now in Pakistan, is also due to arrive shortly for the same purpose.

The special representatives were appointed after Atal Bihari Vajpayee?s visit to China in 2003, the first by an Indian Prime Minister since Rajiv Gandhi?s 1988 trip. Vajpayee?s visit was significant because it showed the two countries as eager to get rid of their baggage and move towards closer cooperation.

Brajesh Mishra, national security adviser in Vajpayee?s government, was then named special representative. Mishra and Dai met a couple of times.

China wants to resolve the boundary dispute based on four broad principles ? continuity of policy, fairness, pragmatism and stability. It wants India to honour past commitments and proceed by a give-and-take formula.

But at the same time, it wants to ensure that irrespective of the outcome of the boundary talks, bilateral relations are not affected.