Manmohan Singh with Wen Jiabao in Beijing on Sunday. (Jay Mandal/ On Assignment)

Beijing, Jan. 13: From the heights of the East Mountain at the Juyongguan Pass north-west of Beijing, the Badaling Expressway is a river of traffic speeding to and from the Chinese capital.

The reconstructed Great Wall astride the Jundu Mountains, through which this pass cuts, still reverberates with the histories of seven centuries, replete with lessons for militaries on offence and defence.

But if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his entourage are taking lessons from the Great Wall at the Juyongguan Pass during their visit, they are not from history — they are from the present. Singh has firmly put road building on the agenda on Day 1 of this tour.

Even if his first visit to China does not go down as path breaking — like that of Rajiv Gandhi’s — it will be noted for the effort to create access.

Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met for a restricted dinner this evening. It was to be a one-on-one. But select members of the official delegations were called in as soon as the two men understood there was much to be sorted out.

According to a highly placed source, the prickly border issue was set aside for the evening. It is to come up at discussions tomorrow and at a meeting between the special representatives of the two countries, national security adviser M.K. Narayanan and his Chinese counterpart Dai Bingquo on Tuesday.

But Singh and Wen discussed civilian nuclear cooperation.

The discussions are important for three reasons. First, the Left is watching. Second, the India-IAEA talks for an India-specific safeguards agreement are due this week in Vienna, probably on January 16. Third, China has in the past supplied low enriched uranium for India’s Tarapur facility.

A fourth reason that could come up later after the safeguards agreement — if it passes muster at the UPA-Left panel — is China’s support for a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group for India to conduct nuclear commerce.

But while greater civilian nuclear cooperation with China is still far off, it is in two other areas that Singh’s visit has notched up some achievement.

Commerce minister Kamal Nath, who arrived here a day earlier, and an Indian business delegation discussed a number of proposals to increase exports from India.

A joint statement Singh and Wen are working on to come out with tomorrow would touch largely on trade issues.

But even before that, said a highly placed source, India had agreed to let China’s Great Wall Airlines fly to Mumbai and Chennai.

The flight proposal was stuck because the Indian security establishment was unsure about the airline’s military link. It had also been suggested that the airline might be allowed to fly to Delhi but not to Mumbai because of a nuclear installation (Barc).

That view has now been trashed. Jet Airways, whose chief Naresh Goyal is here as part of the business delegation, will now get greater access to China in return. Jet and Great Wall will together propose to the two governments the flight routes and frequency.

A second proposal India is pushing has come from Zee’s Subhash Chandra Goel. At a meeting of the business delegation with Singh, Goel made a strong case for persuading China to grant “landing rights” to Zee.

He argued that Hollywood films were great advertisements for American products. Likewise, he said, Bollywood films would give great publicity to things Indian here. And Zee, Subhash Chandra added, was the platform that would make this happen.

India has already allowed the state-run CCTV — China Central Television — to beam in its territory.

At the meeting with the business delegation, Singh said: “The rise of China and India should be viewed as an ‘international public good’ by the global community since it offers new opportunities to sustain global growth… it is a historic necessity for the two great neighbours to work together. There will be areas of competition and there will be areas of co-operation. There is enough space in the world for both countries to continue to grow and address the developmental aspirations of their peoples.”