Beijing: Unperturbed by the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Defence Minister George Fernandes will go ahead with his maiden visit to China from April 20 in an effort to boost Sino-India military co-operation and enhance mutual trust.

"Fernandes would visit China on an official visit from April 20 to 27 as guest of the Chinese Defence Minister general Cao Gangchuan," official sources said on April 16.

Apart from having official level talks with general Cao, Fernandes will call on the chairman of the Central Military Commission and former President Jiang Zemin, Premier Wen Jiabao and other senior Chinese leaders.

Apart from Beijing, Fernandes and a high-level Indian military delegation would visit some other Chinese cities and see the three wings of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

Fernandes, who once described China as "potential threat number one" to India, would be the first Indian Defence Minister to visit China since 1992 when the then Defence Minister Sharad Pawar made a trip to Beijing.

The week long visit of Fernandes is seen as a prelude to the much-talked about trip by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee later this year.

Sources said New Delhi was waiting for a new regime in China, headed by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, to take over reins in Beijing before finalising the significant political and military visit by Fernandes.

Since his anti-China outbursts in 1998, Fernandes himself has mellowed his public criticism of China and its alleged help to its closest ally, Pakistan.

His anti-China statements, prior to and after India's nuclear tests had angered the Chinese leadership, scholars as well as the state media, which ran several commentaries denouncing attempts to raise the bogey of the so-called 'China threat'.

However, of late, Chinese scholars, in view of the fast developments in the international scene, have been calling for greater interaction between China and India to step up the establishment of a multi-polar world.

PTI