2008-01-15

Beijing : Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday sought China's support to "democratise" the UN Security Council, saying it "no longer reflected reality", and also stepped up people-to-people contacts "to ensure proper awareness of each other" between the Asian giants.

Opening his heart before Beijing's intellectual community, Manmohan Singh called China "a great country" more than once as he outlined his vision of how two of the world's fastest growing economies could learn from one another while forging new links to contribute to global peace.

"At the global level, our two countries should be at the forefront of the emergence of a more democratic global order and of multilateral approaches to resolving global issues," he said in a speech to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Today's international institutions, like the UN Security Council, no longer reflect reality and must be democratised," he added.

Manmohan Singh, whose maiden three-day visit to China ends Tuesday, outlined ancient links between the two countries and said they now needed to work together "closely to ensure a global order in which our simultaneous development will have a positive influence not only on our own economies but also on the rest of the world".

He said there was a need to bridge the "knowledge gap" between India and China.

"We need to make much more sustained effort to ensure proper awareness of each other. This not only applies to our culture and history but also to contemporary developments.

"We need to have more people to people contacts to remove misconceptions and prejudices. We need a broad based comprehensive dialogue at the level of intelligentsia, media, non-governmental professionals and the worlds of culture and the arts," he said.

Manmohan Singh added that India and China also needed to learn from each other's national development experiences and also harness each other's complementarities and synergies in the areas of trade and business.

He said: "In pursuing these initiatives we will do it the Asian way - avoiding confrontation and building trust, confidence and consensus. It is only in an environment of peace and prosperity in Asia can be sustained. India and China have an important role to play in building peace, security and stability in the region."

The prime minister said India desired China's as well as international cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear energy.

While acknowledging China's widely admired economic successes had been a stimulus to change in his country, he pointed out that in the democratic system of India "change can only be brought about through public debate and it takes time to build a political consensus".

The original author of India's sweeping economic reforms, Manmohan Singh underlined the need to ensure that growth was "inclusive and equitable".

He explained that this meant addressing the problems of "inter-regional disparity and specifically, urban-rural disparity, revival of the agriculture sector, limited availability of land, and the lack of mobility of those employed in agriculture to productive jobs in industry... It is somewhat similar to what is called harmonious growth in China".

He said India had decided to make important structural shifts in its economic agenda "to address the critical constraints that hold us back from achieving our objective of faster and more inclusive growth".

He added that India proposed to increase investment in infrastructure to nine percent by 2012 relying on both public and private investment and also give priority to education.

In an obvious reference to the assassination of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto last month, he said: "Recent developments in our neighbourhood have brought home to us again the imperative need to collectively fight terrorism and extremism in all its forms.

"The rise of non-state actors, often based on intolerance and narrow conceptions of identity, is a threat to all civilized nations."

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