China says Indian PM visit an “important opportunity”

Chinese President Xi Jinping (extreme right) shake hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the family photo of the BRICS-UNASUR Summit in Brazil on July 16 2014 [gov.br]

During his upcoming China visit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and top legislator Zhang Dejiang. India is set to announce electronic travel visa for Chinese travellers during Modi’s visit.

“The bilateral ties are facing important opportunity,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying ahead of Modi’s visit to Beijing.

“We have noticed the report and appreciate Prime Minister Modi’s positive remarks, which embodied the broad consensus reached by heads of the two countries on the China-India relations,” the Chinese spokesperson added.

Modi will visit Beijing, Shanghai and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s home province Xi’an from May 14-16.

High on the agenda of talks are the $100 billion BRICS Bank, bilateral ties, the trade deficit, China’s Silk Route revival and India’s new manufacturing drive. Earlier on Monday, the Indian government announced the first President of the newly formed BRICS Bank.

Xi and Modi will also discuss international hotspots like Iran, Syria and the Islamic State.

The Indian Prime Minister has been making a push to lure foreign investors to the country and boost its manufacturing capacity.

Earlier this year, Chinese telecom company Huawei Technologies has invested $170 million to open a research and development centre in India as it ties itself to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” campaign. This is the company’s biggest RD center outside China.

Bilateral trade between the two countries topped $70.6 billion in 2014. They have set a $100 billion trade target for 2015.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s India visit last year, China had vowed to help update India’s railway system, establish industrial parks in the Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, and open its markets to Indian products like pharmaceuticals and agricultural goods.

The two leaders are expected to take stock of progress on these counts this week.

In addition to extensive cooperation within BRICS, India has also become one of the founding members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

China and India share a 2,000-km-long border that has never been formally delineated. The two countries began discussing border issues in the 1980s.

China and India have set up mechanisms that include strategic economic dialogue, defense and security consultation, strategic dialogue, financial dialogue and talks between special representatives on the disputed boundary issue.

The two countries compete and cooperate at the same time, said the Indian Prime Minister in a recent interview to Time magazine.

“I firmly believe that the relationship between two countries, the India-China relationship as you are referring to, should be such that to communicate with each other there should really not be a need for us to go through a third entity. That is the level of relationship that we currently have,” Modi said.

In a sharp revised stance from the earlier Indian administration, however, the Modi government has not clearly responded to China’s invitation to join Beijing’s ambitious project of reviving the Silk Road and Belt.

With a combined population of 2.5 billion, China, the world’s second largest economy, and India are increasingly playing an important and influential role in the global economy.

 

TBP