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Context

• In September, the BRICS Summit witnessed an especially important meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was the first after the Dong Lang (Doklam) stand-off.

What are the expectations?

• An important consensus has been reached to improve mutual trust, focus on cooperation, and manage differences.
• Both leaders also agreed to conduct closer high-level exchanges, revitalize a series of dialogues and mechanisms, as well as promote youth and educational cooperation.

What are the common aspirations?

• Economic and trade cooperation are gaining momentum. Last year, the trade volume between China and India exceeded $70 billion.
• More than 500 Chinese companies have invested and started business in India with a total investment of over $5 billion.
• Many Indian enterprises of IT, pharmacy and consultancy have entered the Chinese market.
• People-to-people exchanges are thriving. Mutual visits between our two countries have exceeded one million.
• Practising yoga, drinking Darjeeling black tea, and watching Bollywood movies have become fashionable among the Chinese youth. Yunnan Minzu University has established the India-China Yoga College.
• Local exchanges are booming. China and India have established 14 pairs of sister cities and provinces. PM Modi made frequent visits to Guangdong province when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Why is this the correct time to work together?

• China’s economy is stable and India’s reform has entered a crucial stage.
• Make in India, Digital India, Startup India and other initiatives have yielded outcomes.
• Significant measures like the GST Act have been implemented.
• Faced with similar development objectives and common challenges such as “anti-globalisation” and trade protectionism, China and India should work together.

Way forward

• Both sides should set long-term goals for the development of our bilateral relations.
• One should consider negotiating the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation between China and India, restarting the negotiations of China-India Free Trade Agreement, striving for early harvests on boundary issues, and actively exploring the strategic synergy between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and India’s ‘Act East Policy’.
• Both sides should appropriately manage differences, get under control the problems left over by history such as issues related to boundary and the Dalai Lama, while finding solutions to new problems.