Indian FM expresses high optimism over ties with China

Indian Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid Wednesday expressed high optimism over the future of India-China relations saying both countries are now facing huge opportunities to carry out cooperation in bilateral and multilateral frameworks.

In an exclusive interview with Delhi-base Chinese journalists on the eve of his visit to Beijing, Khurshid said he is expecting to build good working and personal relations with his new Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during his visit to Beijing this week.

He also expressed optimism that India-China relations will move on to a higher stage and open a new chapter this year with exchange of visits by top level leaders of the two countries. " Bilateral relations are in the right court," he said.

Khurshid said India is not only satisfied with but will reciprocate the friendly signals sent by Chinese leaders earlier this year, which he said would help further promote the relations to a new chapter of history between the two countries with "good and sound" foundation laid by the leaders of the two countries in the past 10 years.

"As our prime minister (Manmohan Singh) says, the world is large enough for India and China to work and develop together comfortably," he said, adding that maintaining good relations between the two countries is important not only for India and China, but also for Asia and the world.

The foreign minister said he is very "comfortable" with the way both sides handled the recent incident at the border region, which he said showed "tremendous maturity" of both governments in dealing with the issue while indicating both sides possess understanding of each other's fundamental interests.

"The incident was handled at proportional, limited and localized level. This fundamental understanding was developed over the past several years," he said in reference to the standoff between the troops of the two countries for nearly three weeks since late last month.

He said both India and China are ancient Asian civilizations and both sides should accommodate each other's fundamental interests over issues like border dispute with patience.

The standoff ended peacefully this week after China and India negotiated the situation through diplomatic channel and existing military mechanisms in an amicable way, according to Chinese foreign ministry.

Meanwhile, Khurshid also expressed his hope that India and China can enhance economic and trade relations by making investment in each other and cutting trade imbalance.

"If Chinese companies make huge investment in India and employ thousands of India, it would greatly promote diplomatic ties as well as the people-to-people contacts are very important," he said.

"We need to give substance to people to believe that the 21st century will be an Asian century," he added, while calling for strengthening cooperation in multilateral framework such as WTO, international institutional reform and BRICS.

"We can learn from each other's experiences. Although we cannot be absolutely, completely alike, we could align our position in future over various issues," he added.