Given that he is being accused for shooting his mouth during the recent China tour, the minister’s recent remarks in an interview to the Chinese news agency Xinhua is worth reading again.

"Chinese do not talk as much as Indians, but Chinese perform better, they do much more. I am full of admiration for the way that China just gets to work, where as you know, India talk and talk and keep on talking," he was quoted by Xinhua as saying on May 7.

He has now earned a rare distinction for being praised in the lead editorial of the China Daily on Monday. The editorial advised India to view the issue of Chinese telecom equipment supplies to India from the “broader perspective of Sino-Indian friendship” while praising Ramesh for his statement about the home ministry’s paranoid attitude on the issue.

“In this regard, the remarks by Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh seem prudent. Ramesh said over the weekend in Beijing that India should take a "much more relaxed" approach to Chinese investments and remove "needless" restrictions,” it said.

On the other hand, Ramesh came in for criticism in a report in the Beijing based Global Times for saying that India would not accept it if China built a major storage dam on the Brahmaputra river. The paper quoted an expert in a state-run think-tank saying that China has no plans to divert waters of the Brahmaputra (called Yarlung Zangbo in Chinese).

Ramesh has featured in cover pages of Chinese magazines and have been interviewed several times since last year when India and China signed a deal to coordinate their moves at the climate change conference on Copenhagen.

The local media got their signal from Chinese leaders, who talked about the ‘Copenhagen spirit’ as the basis of strong South-South teamwork to counter western powers at global forum as well as a sound model to strengthen India-China friendship.

Ramesh was seen by many including himself as the prime mover of the Copenhagen spirit of friendship across the Himalayas.

“I see climate change as an opportunity to change the political climate between China and India,” he recently told Xinhua besides expressing similar sentiments at a economic conference in Boao in China last April.

Most Indian politicians are cagey about publicly praising China fearful about the effect their words would have on their image in India. But Ramesh minced no words in his fulsome praise of China.

Addressing the Foreign Correspondents Club of China on Sunday, he talked of India’s ambitious plans for constructing irrigation projects in Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims to be its own. The minister then went on to suggest that India should learn from China and perhaps seek its assistance in handling the projects.

“But our ability to handle vast hydel projects is much less compared to China,” he said.

“I think India has more to learn from China than China to learn from India. We are hoping that these joint programs will build a new relationship between our two countries," he told Xinhua news agency a few days back.

"India and China, by working together in the fields of climate change, are demonstrating not only cooperation in environment, but also sending a message of partnership between the countries,” he said.