President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have reached “most important consensus” during their meeting on the margins of the BRICS summit that China and India should be partners, the top Chinese diplomat said on Monday.
Summing up Xi’s two-day visit to New Delhi on September 12-13 to attend the 18th BRICS Summit and his meeting with PM Modi, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two leaders held a candid and in-depth exchange of views on strategic, long-term and directional issues concerning China-India relations.
Elaborating on Wang’s comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a media briefing here on Monday “as the two leaders have charted the course for the future development of the bilateral ties, China will work with India to implement the important common understandings reached between the two leaders. Guo said China will make the cooperation list longer, deepen people-to-people exchanges, have closer collaboration on multilateral occasions, make continued efforts to improve and grow our ties, and render firm support to each other’s development and revitalization, so that we can contribution to the peace and prosperity in the region and beyond.
President Xi said that China and India can draw on each other’s strengths, support one another, help each other succeed and pursue common development, according to Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The leaders of the two countries agreed to jointly maintain peace and tranquility in border areas, while the two countries will support each other as rotating chair of the BRICS, Wang said. Under the strategic guidance of the two countries’ leaders, China-India relations have gradually emerged from a low point, progressing from a “restart” to a “renewed elevation,” a readout posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website said. PM Modi stated that India stands ready to be a partner, not an adversary, to China, and regards each other’s development as an opportunity rather than a challenge, according to the Chinese foreign minister.
