India and China should handle the bilateral ties from a “strategic height and long-term perspective” while implementing the common understanding reached by the leaders of the two countries, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday (January 21, 2025).
The Ministry was reacting to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s recent remarks that the India-China relationship is trying to disentangle itself from the complications arising from the post-2020 border situation and more thought needs to be given to the longer-term evolution of the ties.
“We need to view and handle the bilateral relations from a strategic height and long-term perspective, bring the relations back to the track of healthy and stable development, and find the right path for big, neighbouring countries to live in harmony and develop side by side,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a media briefing in Beijing.
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Delving into various aspects of New Delhi’s relations with Beijing over past decades, Mr. Jaishankar in his Nani Palkhivala memorial lecture in Mumbai on January 18 said, “misreadings” by past policymakers, whether driven by “idealism or absence of realpolitik”, has helped neither cooperation nor competition with China.
That has changed in the last decade, he said, adding that mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of the relationship between the two sides. He said that more thought needs to be given to the longer-term evolution of ties.
Responding to a question on Mr. Jaishankar’s remarks, Mr. Guo said that as two major time-honoured civilizations, developing countries and emerging economies, China and India need to focus on development and engage in cooperation.
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This serves the fundamental interests of over 2.8 billion people of the two countries, meets the common aspiration of regional countries and peoples, goes along with the historical trend of the Global South growing stronger, and is conducive to peace and prosperity of the region and the wider world, he said.
“The two sides need to earnestly deliver on the important common understandings reached between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their meeting in Kazan, including that China and India are each other’s development opportunities rather than threats, and cooperation partners rather than competitors. In global affairs, the two sides need to remain committed to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, practice true multilateralism, advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and make a greater contribution to world peace, stability, development and prosperity,” he said.
