Of erasing 'scratches on our minds'

Select quotes from her  interview to a private television channel:  

China, a quasi Superpower...

It should concern every Indian and it should spur us on to narrowing this gap in the race with China. It should not be a relationship defined by competition or rivalry alone because it does not suit either country. We must make use of the opportunities to understand China better, to engage it in a way that defends our interests. It is not that we are going to resile from our basic positions and that our security will be hampered in the process.

India’s trade deficit...

...That is the message that we have made very clearly to the Chinese. They have to open the market to our IT services, pharmaceuticals, our agricultural commodities.

Claim on Kashmir...

The message that we have been putting across to the Chinese on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and particularly on the stapled visa issue which directly seems to question our sovereignty over J and K is that we would like more
positive statements of support from China. Premier Wen brought it up himself even before we could raise it.

Sino-Pak ties...

To my mind the best way is to proceed along the lines that we have been going in the last two and a half decades, which is more dialogue, more engagement, more leadership level confidence in dealing with each other. I think we have set a certain paradigm for this relationship (with China) and I believe it is the right paradigm.

Length of border...

We certainly do not agree with their perception of the boundary being limited to just 1,900 kilometres. In our view it is about 3,500 kms

Permanent UNSC seat...

The signals that we are getting from China and particularly from Premier Wen are that they see that the aspirations of a country like India to play a greater role in the UN including its Security Council are worthy of support. And  my own reading is that China is unlikely to stand in the way.

Lingering trauma...

There is a generation of Indians that still thinks of 1962 (conflict over border) and in many ways our opinions and images of China, the scratches on our minds as it
were - to use a term from Harold Isaacs - are very much defined by the trauma of 1962. But there is a whole new generation of Indians and Chinese that has grown up after that. I would say issues like stapled visas, or this hype that has
 surrounded the possibility of China building dams on the Brahmaputra, or the reports that surface from time to time about how the Chinese look at the border, these are issues that are affecting the public psychology on China today.

The highs and lows

Clear and present danger

Managing India-China ties