China urges India to commit to ‘mutual support’ rather than ‘suspicion’ and ‘alienation'

China and India should work in the same direction, explore more substantive measures and commit to mutual understanding, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in Beijing on Monday.

Their meeting was the latest between the two Asian powers following an agreement in October seeking to ease tension on their disputed frontier.

China and India should commit to “mutual support and mutual achievement” rather than “suspicion” and “alienation,” Wang said during the two officials’ meeting, according to the Chinese foreign ministry’s readout.

Relations between China and India had been strained following a military clash on their border in 2020.

Ties have improved over the past four months with several high-level meetings, including talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Russia in October.

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In December, Wang and India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, agreed to seek ways to manage their border issue and step up efforts to build trust, at their second meeting in less than five months.

Paving the way for those talks was an agreement in October to disengage troops at two key face-off points on the countries’ largely undemarcated western Himalayan frontier in Ladakh - a turning point in their dispute that included scheduled patrols of the disputed area.