Asian giants agree their relationship can help spur prosperity and calm an unsettled world
China and India on Friday vowed to cooperate closely amid complicated changes in the world and to handle disputes appropriately.
President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached the consensus as they met in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
Xi said that faced with profound and complex international changes, China and India, as the world’s two largest developing countries, should pay more attention to cooperation. They should move forward as partners to facilitate each other’s development and contribute to world peace, stability and common development, he said.
Xi said China attaches great importance to its ties with India and stands ready to work with its neighbor to enhance mutual political trust, link their development strategies, deepen practical cooperation, and maintain coordination and collaboration in international and regional affairs.
The president called for more high-level interaction, institutional exchanges, strategic communication and policy alignment between the two countries.
China and India should also boost trade and investment cooperation and work together for earlier harvests from large-scale collaborative projects in such areas as production capability, industrial parks and railway construction, he said.
Xi said the two countries should make joint efforts to promote regional connectivity and shared development, align their development initiatives, advance the building of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor with a view to substantial progress at a nearly date, and boost cooperation in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The president said the two countries should increase communication and coordination in multilateral affairs and appropriately control and handle disputes and sensitive problems.
He also called for more subnational, cultural and tourism exchanges, among others, between the neighbors.
Xi congratulated India on becoming a full member of the SCO at the Astana summit, adding that China is willing to cooperate with India within the SCO framework for the healthy and sustained development of the organization.
Modi said a sound India-China relationship will help stabilize the volatile international situation.
The prime minister said the two sides should tap their potential in cooperation, strengthen communication and coordination in international affairs, respect each other’s core concerns and appropriately handle their disputes.
Modi said India is grateful for China’s support for India’s accession to the SCO and will work closely with China as part of the organization.
Jiang Jingkui, director of the Center for South Asian Studies at Peking University, said India’s entry into the SCO provides a new channel for closer interaction between Beijing and New Delhi.
“The SCO is a regional bloc in which China-India cooperation can also extend to other affairs in the region. The SCO will provide a new angle for bilateral ties.”
