Chinese leader Xi urges ‘healthy’ ties with India

PHOENIX – The Associated Press

Chinese President Xi Jinping sought yesterday to move past a tense border dispute with India, telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the two nuclear-armed neighbors should pursue “healthy, stable” relations, according to China’s state media.

The exchange occurred on the sidelines of the just-ended summit of BRICS emerging economies hosted by Xi in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen.

Xi told Modi that “healthy, stable bilateral ties” were “in line with the fundamental interests” of the neighbors, the official Xinhua news agency said.

“China is willing to work with India on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence which were put forward by both countries to improve political mutual trust, promote mutually beneficial cooperation, and push Sino-Indian ties along a right track,” the report quoted him as saying.

 An Indian foreign ministry spokesman also tweeted that the two leaders had a “constructive and forward-looking” talk.

The summit had been carefully stage-managed by hosts China to project an image of developing-world solidarity.

New Delhi announced early last week that both countries were pulling back their border forces, while Beijing said only that India had withdrawn “all its border personnel and equipment that were illegally on the Chinese territory.”

Afterward, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing “hopes the Indian side will learn lessons from this incident and prevent similar things from happening again.”

India and China have a long history of mistrust and went to war in 1962 over the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.