China on Sunday advocated uninterrupted high level engagement with India to counter headwinds in Beijing-New Delhi ties, to enable both countries to emerge as global partners under the framework of the G20 and Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping.
The state-run Xinhua news agency paraphrased remarks by Chinese President Xi Jinping, following his talks on Sunday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as saying that the two countries should “frequently exchange views on major issues of common interest to enhance understanding and trust.”
“China and India should continue dialogues at various levels and in various areas, and frequently exchange views on major issues of common interest to enhance understanding and trust,” he observed.
Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had advocated that New Delhi and Beijing should show greater sensitivity to each other’s “strategic concerns” in order to shore up ties.
Bruised ties
Sino-Indian ties have been recently bruised on account of China’s objections to India’s membership to the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and refusal to impose sanctions in the United Nations on Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammad group. China’s decision to establish an economic corridor linking Gwadar in Pakistan with Kashgar in China, which passes through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) has also stirred deep consternation in India.
But in order to reverse the frostiness in ties, Mr. Xi has stressed that China is willing to work with India “to maintain their hard-won sound relations and further advance cooperation.”
Let us handle it constructively
Mr. Xi added, echoing Mr. Modi’s observations, that China and India should respect and care for each other on issues of major concern, and handle differences in a constructive way.
He added that the two countries can jointly contribute more to world economic growth and better global governance within the G20 framework, and support India's efforts to host the upcoming BRICS summit. India
is hosting the BRICS summit next month Goa.
“Pragmatic cooperation” in large projects
Referring to bilateral dimension of ties, Mr. Xi proposed to discuss the implementation of “pragmatic cooperation” in large projects in infrastructure construction and production capacity, he said. He underscored that Beijing would encourage Chinese companies to invest in India, seen as essential to spur Mr. Modi’s Make-in-India campaign to turn India into a global manufacturing hub. The Chinese
President also advocated imparting greater intensity to people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
