China, India should make sure differences do not go out of control, says foreign minister Wang Yi

Beijing: China and India should shed their mindset of regarding each other as rivals or threats and make sure that their differences do not go out of control, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Thursday.

In his first comments on India-China ties after this week’s meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, Wang said bilateral relations were “affected and undermined” during the past few months “for clear reasons”.

Without mentioning the 73-day standoff between the militaries of the two countries at Doka La, Wang said, “going forward, the two sides need to work together to follow-up on the consensus reached by the two leaders and make sure bilateral relations stay on track.”

Speaking to the media after his talks with Nepalese deputy prime minister and foreign minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Wang said the India-China relationship “should not be derailed”.

“Both the countries should seek harmonious relations and win-win cooperation which is the natural choice and the right choice” for both, Wang said.

“There should be no confrontation. We need to build strategic mutual trust and the two sides need to work to really look at each other as cooperative partners rather than be driven by an old-fashioned mindset and regard each other as rivals or threats,” he said.

Both the countries should also “make sure that differences do not go out of control”, Wang said.

“Both sides need to remain committed to the five principles of peaceful coexistence and work together to properly handle disputes and also work together to maintain tranquillity in the border areas,” he said.

After the end of the Doka La standoff, Modi and Xi had a positive meeting at Xiamen.

Putting behind the standoff, India and China had agreed to move forward in their ties with President Xi telling Prime Minister Modi that he wants to put the relationship on the “right track”.