External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar Insists India , China Need To Respect Each Other’s Core Concerns And Manage Differences

India and China should find stronger convergences, respect each other’s core concerns and manage differences, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said as he underlined that the relationship between the two Asian giants has become “so big” that it has acquired a “global dimension”.

Jaishankar, who concluded his three-day visit to Beijing on Monday, held extensive and in-depth talks with his counterpart Wang Yi on the entire gamut of the India-China ties.

During his visit, he also met Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, a close confidant of President Xi Jinping.

As the two largest developing countries and emerging economies, cooperation between India and China is of great importance to the world, Jaishankar told state-run Xinhua news agency in an interview on Sunday.

“Our relationship is so big that it is no longer a bilateral relationship. It has global dimensions,” the report quoted Jaishankar as saying.

Describing the world as “more multi-polar” with changing global order, he said India and China need to enhance communication and coordination to contribute to world peace, stability and development.

The two countries should find stronger areas of convergence, respect each other’s core concerns, find ways of managing differences and keep a strategic view of the direction of bilateral ties, he said.

The minister said the two neighbours have a long history that goes back to thousands of years and the two countries’ civilisations are among the oldest that represent two pillars of the civilisation of the East.

“A lot of people, including young people of both countries, really don’t have a good understanding of how much our two cultures of civilisations have affected each other,” Jaishankar said, underlining that “promoting a greater awareness of that history” through more cultural exchanges is an important task for the two countries.