Lately, China has been assertive: Manmohan

Washington, Nov 24: Noting some provocative steps by China, PM Manmohan Singh has said there was "certain amount of assertiveness" by China lately and that India will not choose its "non-democratic" path.

"There is certain amount of assertiveness on the part of Chinese. I don't fully understand the reasons for it. That has to be taken note of," Singh said during an interaction at the US Council for Foreign Relations here.

Prime Minister did not elaborate but the statement assumes significance considering that China has recently been involved in some provocative steps like issuing separate visas to Kashmiris on stapled sheets of paper rather than passport, to send out a message that the state was not a part of India.

Referring to the longstanding India-China border problems, the Prime Minister said India has been "trying hard" to engage China over the last five years in an attempt to resolve the dispute through dialogue.

When asked why the Indian economic performance was lagging behind that of China's, he said, "There is no doubt that the Chinese growth performance is superior to the Indian performance."

"But I have always believed there are other values which are more important than the growth of gross domestic product like respect for fundamental human freedoms, respect for rule of law, respect for multi-religious, multi-ethnic rights," he added.

OneIndia News