India-China relations in fast-track mode since Modi-Jingpin meet last year

Beijing: China on Friday said "practical" cooperation with India is on a fast track since the last year's Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping and expressed readiness to work with New Delhi to uphold the rights of the two countries at a time of global uncertainty.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang during a media briefing here said the informal summit between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi in Wuhan has opened up new prospects for the bilateral ties. You can see that under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations have shown a sound momentum of improvement with frequent high-level exchanges in all areas and practical cooperation has entered a fast track," Lu said responding to a question on Sino-India ties.

He said a sound and steady China-India relations serve the interests of the two countries and people and contribute to world peace and development. Now the world is facing uncertainties and destabilising factors and in such background China is willing to work with India to enhance coordination and communication in international affairs and jointly uphold legitimate rights and interests of our two countries and developing countries," he said.

He said the two countries cannot let differences become disputes and have been making efforts to use bilateral dialogue mechanism to conduct mutual and beneficial cooperation in all areas. Last month, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held extensive talks in New Delhi under a newly set up framework and agreed on "ten pillars" of cooperation to enhance cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

The setting up of the 'High Level Mechanism on Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges' was decided upon during the Wuhan summit. Since the resolution of the Doklam face-off in 2017, the two countries have taken a series of measures to enhance overall ties.