NEW DELHI: India is committed to improving ties with China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday, as the world’s two most populous nations pursue a warming in relations in the wake of shared tensions with the US.
Modi flew to China to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders from South and Central Asia.
It is the Indian prime minister’s first visit to China since the SCO summit in Wuhan in 2018, as relations were later strained for years following deadly clashes along their Himalayan border.
Talks over the disputed border resumed earlier this month, with Beijing top diplomat Wang Yi’s visit to New Delhi.
“An atmosphere of peace and stability has been created after the disengagement on the border. Agreements have been reached between our special representatives regarding border management,” Modi said in his opening remarks during his meeting with Xi, a video of which he shared on social media.
“The interests of 2.8 billion people of both the countries are linked to our cooperation. This will also pave the way for the welfare of the entire humanity. We are committed to taking our relations forward on the basis of mutual trust, respect and sensitivity.”
The nuclear-armed neighbors were locked in a standoff triggered by deadly clashes along their Himalayan border, known as the Line of Actual Control, in 2020.
Tens of thousands of troops, tanks, and artillery have since been deployed on both sides of the LAC, with both countries building new roads, bunkers, and airstrips in the high-altitude area.
India restricted Chinese investments, banned dozens of Chinese apps, and scrutinized trade ties, as it deepened relations with Beijing’s rivals — the US, Japan, and Australia.
But US President Donald Trump’s trade war, in which, in early August, he hiked the total duty on Indian exports over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, has created an opening for the two Asian giants to seek to mend their ties.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs quoted Modi as saying during the meeting with Xi that both countries “pursue strategic autonomy, and their relations should not be seen through a third country lens.”
The statement, according to Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Program and a China studies fellow at the Takshashila Institution, needed to be considered in Beijing’s “strategic cognition,” as well as its vision of Asia’s multipolarity.
“It is high time that Beijing began viewing India for India’s sake, and not via Washington, D.C.-tinted glasses,” he said.
“On the issue of multipolarity, both sides have long agreed that the world should be moving in that direction. The difference between them, however, has been about whether global multipolarity also entails a multipolar Asia. The Indian readout reiterates this objective of Asian multipolarity, whereas the Chinese readout does not do so.”
