China India Photo:VCG

Scholars from China and India attended an online seminar on Friday to discuss how to explore and deepen cooperation to advance China-India ties and avoid bilateral relations from being kidnapped by border disputes. 

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and India. But since May 5, the two countries have been locked in a border stand-off with bilateral relations souring significantly. 

Scholars participating in the seminar agreed that China and India, two Asian giants, should maintain dialogue and communication to properly handle border disputes and strengthen crisis management. They proposed that the two countries should seek long-term solutions to fix the border predicament.  

Jiang Yili, a research fellow for the China Institute of International Studies, said that the clash in the Galwan Valley in June seriously damaged China-India relations and brought the mutual trust to its lowest level. With strengthened US-India strategic interactions and intensifying China-India strategic competitions, China-India relations are very likely to be at low ebb for a long period to come. "China should enhance strategic communication with India to dissolve India's strategic suspicions over China," Jiang said. 

Rong Ying, a deputy head of the China Institute of International Studies, said that development is a top priority for both China and India. In this regard, China and India have common strategic interests. The two countries should consider overall interests of bilateral relations, handle the divergences in a proper way, and not allow differences to disrupt bilateral relations, Rong said. 

India and China have developed multiple mechanisms to resolve their border standoffs, and other issues related to mutual trust or security concerns. Nevertheless, a lot more work still needs to be done to strength their mutual trust - especially if the two sides have to build stronger security cooperation, said Swaran Singh, professor and Chairman of Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament, Jawaharlal Nehru University. 

"It is their own national interest that both India and China must avoid undercutting each other and compliment their leverages to together build a better world," Singh stressed. 

Experts also emphasized the importance of economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges between China and India at the conference, which was held by the Institute of South Asian Studies at Sichuan University. 

Global Times