Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao tours South Asia next week, aiming to balance a growing trade relationship with India and an old friendship with Pakistan, without upsetting the nuclear rivals. Relations between China and India, the world?s two most populous nations, have been marred by a 1962 border war and Delhi?s hospitality for the government-in-exile of Tibet, the western region China invaded in 1950.

But as Wen embarks next Tuesday on a trip that will also take him to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, analysts say business is beginning to trump politics between the Asian giants. ?Both Delhi and Beijing have a sense that they can do business together and keep some of the more controversial issues ? of which there are a number ? on the backburner,? said Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, a research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Trade between China and India soared to more than $13 billion in 2004 from $100 million a decade ago. Last year, India?s army chief made a first trip to China in a decade and, in 2003, the two countries held their first joint naval exercises. ?There was a recognition they need to enhance the areas where their goals overlap, otherwise they could end up as unhealthy competitors,? said a Western diplomat in Beijing.

Yesterday, top officials from the two countries were holding talks in Beijing to narrow down long-running differences over their unsettled Himalayan border. Ahead of Wen?s trip, India?s prime minister said better ties between India and China, which together had a third of the world?s population, would have an impact across the region. ?The whole world would be watching the two of us shaking hands,? Indian Express newspaper quoted Manmohan Singh as telling reporters accompanying him on a visit to Mauritius.

At the same time, analysts say China?s friendship with Pakistan is changing, pointing out that while it is still a major arms supplier to Islamabad, China was studiously neutral when the two came to the brink of a fourth war in 2002. ?China?s fundamental standpoint is for India and Pakistan to accelerate their reconciliation,? said Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute for International Studies at Tsinghua University. ?India knows China?s military aid toward Pakistan does not aim to change the balance in the region.?

But both Delhi and Washington are eyeing China?s interests in Pakistan, where it provides hundreds of millions in development financing. Pakistan is building a 300-megawatt nuclear power plant worth $874 million with help from Beijing, and China bankrolled 80 percent of its $248 million Gawadar port in Baluchistan province. But Islamabad denied a report in Newsweek magazine that Beijing might seek access for its navy to the Gawadar port. ?From what I see this is all speculative reporting. As far as Gawadar port is concerned, it is purely a commercial project,? said Pakistani military spokesman Shaukat Sultan.

Pakistan has delayed inauguration of the port and Wen will not visit because of security fears. Last year a bomb killed three Chinese technicians working on the project in an attack claimed by Baluchistan separatists. Absent from Wen?s itinerary is Nepal, where King Gyanendra sacked the government in February, declared a state of emergency and suspended civil rights. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing was in Nepal this week, but analysts said Beijing did not want to provide a show of legitimacy for the king with a higher-level visit.

Lindsay BECK