Landing in Beijing's biting morning wind, Dr Singh - on his first China trip since becoming Prime Minister in 2004 - will want to capitalise on warming relations between the traditional rivals to dampen lingering mutual mistrust.

Pushed along by a booming trade, Beijing and New Delhi have in the past decade finally emerged from the shadow of their 1962 border war. But intractable border disputes remain and China worries about India's growing closeness to the United States.

Economic cooperation aside, those issues and the current turmoil in Pakistan - China's ally and India's rival - are likely to come up when Dr Singh meets Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today, and President Hu Jintao and parliament chief Wu Bangguo tomorrow.

Yesterday, Dr Singh was accompanied by Beijing vice-mayor Chen Gang as he viewed an exhibition on the Chinese capital's Olympics preparations.

'Beijing's preparations for the Olympics are a source of inspiration for India,' the official Xinhua news agency quoted Dr Singh as saying.

India will host the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The Indian leader is also due to speak at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank, tomorrow. China and India are the world's fastest-growing big economies. Their bilateral trade topped US$30 billion (S$44 billion) last year and is projected to cross US$40 billion before their target of 2010.

But an Indian business delegation, which is accompanying Dr Singh on his trip, wants to close a trade gap in China's favour that New Delhi says has jumped from US$4 billion to US$9 billion since 2006.

Beijing, on its part, will want to push New Delhi on what it sees as barriers to Chinese investment in India, noted Dr Li Mingjiang, of the Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

China is likely to play ball on another possible item on Dr Singh's agenda, he said.

New Delhi is lobbying for Beijing's crucial support to be allowed back into the global trade in civilian nuclear technology and fuel.

China is a key member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which must endorse safeguards that New Delhi is negotiating with the International Atomic Energy Agency so that India's nuclear pact with the US can work.

However, Beijing will also want to be assured that India is not banding together with the US, Japan and Australia against China.

Dr Singh has already dismissed such talk, telling reporters last week: 'I have made it clear to the Chinese leadership that India is not part of any so-called contain-China effort.'

While the atmosphere is good, analysts say few concrete results are expected from Dr Singh's visit.

Professor Shen Dingli of Shanghai's Fudan University said that for Beijing, three key issues beset China-India ties: the Tibet question, the border dispute and New Delhi's cosying up to the US.

'None of these three issues can be solved by top leaders' visits, but bilateral ties have been steadily improving and such visits can prevent China and India from returning to confrontation,' he said.

simcy@sph.com.sg