Li Keqiang's India visit helped build mutual trust in bilateral ties: China

BEIJING: China today said Premier Li Keqiang's India visit has helped build mutual trust between the two countries as he held "candid" talks with the Indian leadership without skirting differences on issues of concern to New Delhi like the boundary question and trade imbalance.

"We believe his visit to India further built up our strategic mutual trust", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media briefing while answering a question on the major takeaways of Li's visit to India and Pakistan.

"During his visit to India, Premier Li did not avoid differences between the two sides on some issues", he said. "On the contrary, Li had candid discussions with his Indian counterpart and made clear our strategic intentions, for example the issues Indians are concerned (about) like the boundary question, cross border rivers, trans border rivers, resources and trade imbalance", Li said.

"The visit offered us a fresh strategic perspective to look at China-India relations", he said, stating that it will be very difficult to find two major countries that have so much in common as China and India. "China-India cooperation has gone far beyond their bilateral relations. Their cooperation is good news to the two peoples as well as Asia and beyond", Hong said.

"When you look around the globe, it will be very difficult for you to find two major countries that have so much in common as China and India. As (a) matter of fact, China and India are strategic partners in nature. I think such a strategic significance has always been ignored by people", he said. The visit also helped the two countries to "further expand their strategic consensus", Hong added.

"The two sides agreed to make consensus the dominant element of their relations. The two sides stressed in their Joint Statements that (the) two countries are partners instead of rivals. Two sides treat each other as an opportunity instead of threat", he said.
"Li prompted the Indian side to take a strategic perspective to pinpoint the common interests between the two sides and work together with China to manage and properly handle differences while bearing in mind their larger interests as well as handling the possible problems in their relations with a cooperative attitude," Hong said.

Hong pointed to Li's assertion that the "seeds of friendship between the two countries will bear fruits in the future".

On China's plans to build a dam in PoK, Hong reiterated China's stand on Kashmir saying, Beijing always took a clear and consistent stand on the Kashmir issue. "We hope India and Pakistan can solve relevant issue through dialogue", he said.

On Li's call to build an economic corridor between China and Pakistan he said the two sides should make steady efforts to promote construction of corridor so as to promote common development of the two countries.

About Li's visit to Pakistan, Hong said that it further demonstrated that China-Pakistan relationship is "unbreakable" and the friendship withstood the test of time and has risen above the changes of the times.

China will always give priority to its relations with Pakistan in its diplomacy and China is ready to work together with Pakistan to promote their common development, Hong said. The high level interactions between the two countries should charter the course for future development such as promote cooperation in connectivity and maritime affairs, he said.

The visit also focussed on increasing the trade volume of two countries and to encourage Chinese companies to take part in infrastructure development in Pakistan. The visit also stressed the importance of deepening people to people exchanges so as to "garner more public support for our relations" and to strengthen China-Pakistan cooperation in international and regional affairs, Hong said.