Beijing signals a new chapter in Asia’s most consequential bilateral relationship
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on India and China to reframe their relationship seeing each other as “partners, not rivals” in remarks made at his annual press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress on Sunday.
Wang pointed to the back-to-back summits between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping first in Kazan in 2024, then in Tianjin last year as proof that both nations are moving beyond the five-year freeze triggered by the 2020 Ladakh border standoff.
He cited record bilateral trade, resumed visa services, and revived flight connections as early dividends of the thaw, while urging both sides to “uphold good-neighbourliness” and jointly protect stability along their shared border.
Wang also called on the two Asian giants, as fellow members of the Global South, to support each other’s upcoming BRICS presidencies India hosting this year, China in 2027.
“Division and confrontation is detrimental to the rejuvenation of Asia,” Wang said, in a statement that read equally as a message to Washington as it did to New Delhi.
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