Don’t let boundary issue of the past define current India-China ties: Chinese envoy

India-China ties reached a “new level of improvement” after the recent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Tianjin, Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong said on Tuesday. He said the two countries should not let the boundary dispute define ties between them.

Speaking at a function in Delhi to celebrate China’s National Day, Mr. Xu, who was joined by Arun Kumar Chatterjee, Secretary, External Affairs Ministry, said this year marks 76 years of the Communist Party government and 75 years since the establishment of India-China diplomatic relations and had seen a major improvement in high-level engagements and people-to-people ties.

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Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi have met twice in the past year, and both sides have agreed to restore flights, visas, and other bilateral mechanisms after the four-year-freeze on ties due to the military stand-off at the Line of Actual Control.

“Bridging differences through dialogue has always been the important key to advancing China-India relations,” Mr. Xu said, adding that the two countries “should not allow the boundary question that was left over from the past to define the current China-India relations, nor let specific differences affect comprehensive bilateral cooperation”. During the LAC stand-off, New Delhi had maintained that normal bilateral relations were not possible without normalcy at the boundary.

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“Over the past 75 years, despite the ups and downs, the relationship is overwhelmingly defined by friendly cooperation,” Mr. Xu told a gathering of diplomats and Indian invitees at the event.

According to the envoy, the Chinese Embassy has issued 2,65,000 visas to Indian citizens in 2025 and resumed the facilitation of pilgrims to Kailash-Mansarovar, following which 700 official pilgrims and 20,000 private pilgrims undertook the yatra this year. Mr. Xu said that between January and August, bilateral trade in goods grew 10.4% year-on-year to $102 billion. 

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These were Mr. Xu’s first public comments since Mr. Modi’s visit to China on August 30, seven years after his last visit amid a thaw in relations. Last month, the envoy had criticised the U.S. for  “bullying” India by imposing 50% tariffs and expressed China’s support to India to shore up the international trading order.

India and U.S. have since resumed trade negotiations, although the U.S. tariffs have not been rolled back. Referring to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit that Mr. Modi attended, Mr. Xu said Mr. Xi had proposed a “Global Governance Initiative”, calling for “adherence to sovereign equality, abiding by international rule of law, practicing multilateralism, advocating the people-centred approach”.