During a meeting on August 31 with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India is “committed” to developing relations between the two countries, based on trust, respect and mutual understanding.
For his part, Xi welcomed Modi’s message and called New Delhi an “important friend” of Beijing. According to Xi, India and China need to handle their relationship from a “strategic and long-term perspective”.
“We should not let the border issue determine the overall relationship between the two countries,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.
Xi said that the future relationship between India and China would be “promising, stable and developing in depth” if the two countries treated each other as partners, rather than rivals.
Xi stressed that the world situation was undergoing unprecedented changes in a century, and in this situation, India and China must unite.
“It is important to be friends, good neighbors. The dragon and the elephant must unite,” Xi said.