China wants India and Pakistan to join hands, says Chinese Envoy

Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong on Saturday said that China wants India and Pakistan to have good relations and join hands for promoting peace and stability in the regions. This statement comes after the recently concluded informal talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also said that closer cooperation between China and India will have an important and positive impact on the building of a fair and equitable international order.

Speaking on India-Pakistan relations, Sun Weidong said, "Both China and India are major countries with important influence in the region. The two leaders had in-depth communication on the regional situation. China stressed that it sincerely look forward to good relations between China and India, China and Pakistan as well as India and Pakistan. We hope to see countries in the region join hands in promoting regional peace and stability and realising development and prosperity." 

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Before Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had also visited Beijing along with his Army Chief and raised the issues of Kashmir and CPEC during his engagements. India has consistently maintained that talks and terror cannot go hand in hand. Interestingly, Pakistan has announced that it is going to host the SAARC summit in which India will also be invited as a member country. However, earlier also Pakistan's efforts to draw consensus on full participation in the South Asian regional forum failed to yield results. 

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Chinese envoy to India also said that during the recent Modi-Xi talks, China also proposed expanding the scope of dialogue in order to extend cooperation in the region. "The Chinese side also put forward its proposition on promoting cooperation under the "China-India+" mechanism, that is to extend the cooperation model to other countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa on the basis of the "China-India + Afghanistan" cooperation," Sun said.

He also said that closer cooperation between China and India will have an important and positive impact on the building of a fair and equitable international order. "China proposes that China and India play a leading role in regional inter-connectivity and work to build a more open connectivity network", Weidong added.

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The Modi-Xi informal summit

PM Modi hosted the Chinese President Xi Jinping for the second informal summit after Wuhan at Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu from October 11. On the first day, both leaders held five hours of discussions apart from exploring the historic seaport. In the meeting, they spoke about issues related to terrorism and radicalisation and tried to identify potential areas for investment. Saturday morning was marked by PM Modi’s one-on-one meeting with the Chinese President.

This was followed by delegation-level talks where both the PM and Xi Jinping discussed ways to further the India-China relationship. Thereafter, the PM gifted a special handloom saree to the Chinese President. Subsequently, Xi Jinping departed for a two-day visit to Nepal from the Chennai International Airport. 

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(With ANI inputs)