by Lorien Holland

BEIJING, Nov 26 (AFP) - Chinese President Jiang Zemin is looking to bolster Beijing's fledgling superpower status with a landmark state tour of South Asia, encompassing potential rival India and old ally Pakistan.

"China wants a high profile in the international arena. We have seen growing 'trip diplomacy' to its neighbours in Southeast Asia and now it is turning its focus to its western borders," said an Asian diplomat based in China's capital.

"Taking Pakistan and India together shows a development in its dealings with its neighbours, which is necessary for any attempt at superpower status," he added.

Jiang is set to arrive in New Delhi Thursday for China's first presidential visit to India, after decades of mistrust sparked by a bitter border war in 1962 and China's declared nuclear capacity.

He will then fly on to Pakistan, which separated from India at independence from Britain in 1947 and has enjoyed strong patronage from Beijing, including the construction of the Taxila Heavy Mechanical Complex which Jiang himself supervised in the mid-seventies.

The final leg will be in Nepal, which shares a long land border with the troubled region of Tibet and, until recent agreements with Beijing, allowed virtual free passage of refugees seeking to reach India and Tibet's government-in-exile in Dharamsala.

"In modern history, China has shown very little interest in the politics of the Indian sub-continent, in the same way that it has shown little interest in the Middle East," said a European diplomat specialising in China's external relations.

"But there has been a gradual melting of the glacier in the triangular China-India-Pakistan relationship as Beijing has come to regard itself as the regional power with interests in maintaining good neighbourly relations with all," he said.

"This is shown clearly in China's efforts to boost trade, so that it can then use economic ties as a political lever," he added.

China's trade ministry called Friday for expanded Sino-Indian economic cooperation and said Jiang's visit would help boost trade, which at 1.01 billion dollars in the first 10 months of the year made up only 0.4 percent of China's total foreign trade.

While India is a regional power and potential rival to China, Beijing is currently more concerned with New Delhi's continued acceptance of Tibetan refugees and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader in exile who fled to India after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

In the last month, Beijing has launched the "final battle" to wipe out all remaining vestiges of the Dalai Lama's authority in Tibet and as numerous diplomats in Beijing were quick to point out, India's position makes China's task harder.

China already has political agreements with Nepal and Bhutan over the return of most Tibetan refugees who leave China without correct papers.

"It is clear that China wants all its western neighbours to be aware of its new policies in Tibet, and get as much support as it can, but it is also clear that China is not going to jeopardize its relations with Pakistan by getting too bogged down in the relationship with India," said the Asian diplomat.

Pakistan's President Farooq Ahmed Leghari on Monday called for increased Sino-Pakistani cooperation in trade, which is expected to reach around one billion dollars this year.

China is one of Pakistan's major arms suppliers, and disputes over its alleged transfer of nuclear components to Islamabad have frequently raised heckles in the Sino-US relationship.

"The Chinese think that Pakistan spends too much of its budget on defence, but if they are going to do that, then the Chinese also see no harm in supplying them, just like a superpower," the Asian diplomat said.