Unveiling the vision of an Asian resurgence based on cooperative relations between the two rising Asian powers, India and China have sealed a defining border pact that will help insulate their ties from recurrent tensions emanating from an undefined boundary and inked eight other pacts to expand ties in diverse areas.
In their second meeting this year – the first time the leaders of India and China have visited each other’s capitals in over five decades – India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang October 23 held wide-ranging talks at the majestic Great Hall of the People in Beijing that focused on mutual growth and injecting the much-needed equilibrium and momentum in their bilateral ties.
After the talks, Manmohan Singh underlined that “the prosperity and progress of 2.5 billion Indian and Chinese people would be a major factor of Asian resurgence and global prosperity and stability.”
“As leaders of large re-emerging nations, pursuing socio-economic progress in a rapidly changing and uncertain global environment, we have resolved to realize the full promise of our partnership and maintain the friendliest of relations. This will be our strategic vision,” he said in Beijing.
In a similar vein, the Chinese premier took a long-range view, saying the bilateral relationship between India and China is one of the most important relationships in the 21st century.”
The signing of the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) was the showpiece outcome of the much-speculated talks. The pact seeks to prevent the recurrence of incidents like the April, 2013 deep incursion by Chinese troops in Ladakh that imposed severe strains on bilateral ties.
The four-page BDCA, inked by Defence Secretary R K Mathur and People’s Liberation Army Deputy Chief of General Staff Lt Gen Sun Jianguo, contains 10 clauses which detail mechanisms to ensure peace, tranquillity and stability along the 4,000-km Line of Actual Control. The pact underlines that neither side will use its military capability against the other side and that their respective military strengths shall not be used to attack the other side.
In his interaction with journalists after the talks, Manmohan Singh underscored the centrality of peaceful frontiers to the future well-being of India-China relations. “We agreed that peace and tranquillity on our borders must remain the foundation for growth in the India-China relationship, even as we move forward the negotiations towards a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement to the India-China Boundary Question. This will be our strategic benchmark.”
Besides the border pact, eight other agreements, including one on strengthening cooperation on trans-border rivers, were signed after restricted and delegation-level talks that lasted over two hours.
The pacts includes cooperation on Nalanda University as part of the East Asia Summit process, cultural exchange programme for 2013-15, cooperation in road transport and highways and setting up of Chinese power equipment service centres in India. Three pacts were signed separately for establishing sister city relationship between Delhi and Beijing, Bengaluru and Chengdu, Kolkata and Kunming.
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