Just ahead of India's scheduled meeting with the leaders of the Quad grouping, China issued a conciliatory hand. "China and India should stop undercutting each other, shed mutual suspicion and create enabling conditions by expanding bilateral cooperation to resolve the border issue," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Sunday.
Quad comprises Japan, India, Australia and the United States. The four countries had in 2017 given shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the "Quad" or the Quadrilateral coalition to counter China's aggressive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region. The meeting is scheduled to take place on March 12.
Calling the Ladakh boundary dispute as not the "whole story" of the China-India relationship, Wang said that both countries were friends and partners but they should shed suspicion at each other. "The boundary dispute, an issue left from history, is not the whole story of the China-India relationship. It is important that the two sides manage disputes properly and at the same time expand and enhance cooperation to create enabling conditions for the settlement of the issue," Wang said at the virtual press conference held on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's Parliament.
Wang's comments on the border issue came days after he held a 75-minute telephonic conversation with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during which the latter emphasised that the disengagement of troops at all friction points is necessary to bring peace and tranquillity on the border and for the development of bilateral relations.
In his remarks, Wang pointed out that the world expects both China and India to safeguard the common interests of the developing countries and advance multipolarity in the world. "On many important issues, our positions are the same or close due to similar national realities, therefore China and India are each other's friends and partners, not threats or rivals," the foreign minister said.
-Inputs from PTI
