BEIJING: Ahead of the installation of the new leadership in Beijing, a senior Chinese military official has said India and China are “looking to deepen mutual trust” and widen their strategic partnership.
China attaches great importance to developing military ties with India and hopes to increase mutual strategic trust, Xu Qiliang, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, told China Daily. His comments came days after the annual India-China defence dialogue between Xu and Indian Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma.
The daily alluded to a meeting between China’s State Councillor Dai Bingguo and India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in New Delhi on the sidelines of a BRICS meeting last week. During his visit, Dai, also Beijing’s chief pointsperson for boundary talks, had delivered a letter from the new General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping, who will take charge as the country’s president in March, to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying that India and China could grow together.
“China’s latest interpretation of Sino-Indian ties, which is full of goodwill, has drawn much media attention in India,” the daily said.
It added: “All these are positive signals that the two neighbours are now looking to deepen mutual trust and the bilateral relationship, which will contribute to regional peace and development.
“As two big countries with a rising clout in global and regional platforms, how Beijing and New Delhi interact with each other always attracts wide attention.
“Some in the world arena tend to deem the two most populous countries in the world as potential rivals. Their unsettled border issue, skirmishes over trade and lack of mutual understanding keep each other apart from time to time,” it said.
Despite the long-standing boundary dispute, bilateral trade between India and China has surpassed $75 billion and is set to cross $100 billion by 2015.
“Obviously, cooperation in trade has become the cornerstone of Sino-Indian ties,” the China Daily said.
“Beijing and New Delhi have every reason to continue to build on the current desirable momentum, as it will help deepen mutual trust and lay a solid foundation for solving other thorny issues between them.”
–India News Network (IWN)
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