India: Foreign policy to stay independent

India will maintain an independent foreign policy that seeks strong ties with China and other Asian neighbors, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday, in an apparent attempt to reassure Beijing over New Delhi's warming ties with Washington.

Addressing a Chinese government-backed think tank in Beijing, Singh said China and India should cooperate to further spur global economic growth. He stood with Beijing in rejecting demands that developing nations shoulder an equal responsibility in combating climate change.

Singh also said India welcomed cooperation with China on civilian nuclear energy generation, the subject of a proposed agreement with the United States seen as a harbinger of stronger relations. Singh gave no details.

"Our policy seeks to ... give us strategic autonomy in the world. Independence of our foreign policy enables us to pursue mutually beneficial cooperation with all major countries of the world," Singh said.

Singh's visit to China, the first by an Indian prime minister in five years, highlights growing interaction between the Asian powerhouses, whose combined populations of nearly 2.4 billion account for about one third of humanity.

On Monday, the countries agreed to ramp up trade and military links, part of a drive by their leaders that sought to portray them as complementary neighbors rather than rivals.

At the end of his trip Tuesday, Singh met with Chinese President Hu Jintao, telling him strong economic growth in China and India offered hope amid global economic uncertainties.

"I come here with the strong belief that our two countries must do everything in their power to strengthen our multifaceted cooperation with new ties of friendship and partnership," Singh told Hu at the start of their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

Bilateral ties have improved markedly on the back of soaring commerce and increased contacts. Two-way trade grew to $37 billion last year, and on Monday, Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said they would push for that figure to reach $60 billion annually by 2010.

Singh and Wen also reiterated a commitment to maintaining calm along their disputed border while negotiators try to resolve the long-standing disagreement.

They said joint military drills would be held in India this year, following the first such exercises in China last year.

Even amid the buoyant mood in ties, residual mistrust remains over the border dispute that sparked a brief but bloody 1962 war. New Delhi has expressed concern about China's cultivation of relations with Myanmar, Pakistan and other Indian neighbors, while Beijing is believed to be watching developments in New Delhi's increasingly close relationship with Washington.

Stronger U.S.-India ties have been emphasized by a bilateral agreement that allows the United States, for the first time in three decades, to ship nuclear fuel and technology to India. New Delhi will in exchange open its civilian nuclear reactors to international inspectors.

Against that background, Singh's comments appeared aimed at reassuring China that India was not contemplating a fundamental change in its traditional foreign policy of nonalignment.

With China's economy steaming ahead at about 11 percent a year and India's at about 9 percent, both nations are exerting a growing influence on the global economy.

That growth has prompted demands that China and India do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a task that Singh maintained was the primary responsibility of the developed world — virtually echoing China's viewpoint.

"The rights of our people to a fair chance to improve their lot cannot be abandoned because of environmental damage caused by others who ... squandered the earth's resources," Singh said.