Beijing/New Delhi: India and China should view each other as partners and opportunities rather than strategic rivals, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Sunday.
Wang was speaking at his annual press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and said that both countries should follow the direction set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and president Xi Jinping to stabilise and improve bilateral relations.
“Building on the fresh start enabled by their Kazan meeting in 2024, the Tianjin summit brought about further improvement in China-India relations,” he said, referring to the recent diplomatic engagements between the two leaders, as reported by The Telegraph Online.
“We are heartened to see re-energised interactions at all levels, a new record in bilateral trade, and closer people-to-people exchanges. All this has brought tangible benefits to the two peoples,” Wang said.
Both countries “must maintain the correct strategic perception of each other as partner rather than rival, and opportunity instead of threat”, the foreign minister said on the future trajectory of ties.
“Both sides also must uphold good-neighbourliness and friendship, and jointly safeguard peace and stability in the border areas and focus on development,” Wang said.
“As each other’s important neighbours and members of the Global South, China and India enjoy profound civilisational ties and share extensive common interests,” he said.
“Mutual trust and cooperation is beneficial to the development of the two countries, while division and confrontation is detrimental to the rejuvenation of Asia,” Wang added.
The two sides should adhere to the direction set by their leaders and remove external disruptions, the Chinese minister emphasised.
“The two sides should follow the direction set by leaders and remove interference,” he said without elaborating.
India and China should support each other in hosting BRICS summits, Wang said. India is scheduled to host the summit this year, while China will host it in 2027.
After remaining frozen for nearly five years after the Galwan clash, India-China ties began showing signs of normalisation after two meetings between Modi and Xi – first in Kazan, Russia in 2024, and later on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin in 2025.
Both sides have resumed visa and flight services and initiated a series of measures aimed at restoring normal diplomatic engagement since then.
