China’s final representative to India Sun Weidong in his farewell message has highlighted the need to manage and resolve issues between India and China and respect the concept of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
After the Ladakh border clash in 2020, which has remained the main point of contention between the two sides, Sun, who took office in July 2019, is retiring at a time when the two sides are still managing their relations.
Sun stated that it is only natural for important neighbors China and India to have some disagreements, but the point is how to handle the disagreements in his farewell statements, which were uploaded on the Chinese embassy’s website. The envoy stated that “we should be conscious that the two countries’ common interests are larger than their differences.”
“Instead of defining China-India relations by disagreements, the two sides should work to manage and resolve conflicts and seek a suitable solution through communication and consultation. The two nations must uphold the concept of non-interference in one another’s domestic affairs and respect each other’s political systems and developmental trajectories.
In elaborating on the points of agreement between China and India, the envoy noted that both nations are old oriental civilizations that have lived next to one another for thousands of years.
China and India, the only two nations in the world with populations of over a billion, are both going through crucial stages of growth and renewal. The challenges we face in working to improve our two nations are unmatched, he remarked.
The Chinese envoy advised both China and India to escape the “geopolitics trap” and take a different course than in the past.
“China and India should have the intelligence to find a way to live in peace and create win-win cooperation between the two great neighboring and rising countries,” Sun said. “There is enough room in the globe for China and India to flourish together.”
The departing Chinese envoy added, “Over the past three years, I have had the honor to greet President Xi Jinping in Chennai for the second informal meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” He was speaking of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2019 visit to India.
The situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), in the India-China border areas, has been the subject of numerous diplomatic and military level meetings between India and China since April 2020.
India has emphasized time and time again that the border situation must be stable for India-China ties to be normal, and that if China upsets the peace and tranquility in border regions, it will worsen the situation.
“We have not changed our stance that it will affect our ties if China undermines the peace and tranquility in border areas. At a Bengaluru event in August, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar declared, “Our relationship is not normal, and it cannot be normal since the border situation is not normal.