China offers India fresh proposals to mend ties

India is likely to be cautious in its response to China’s latest proposal to start negotiations on a bilateral treaty of friendship and cooperation.

New Delhi was surprised by the latest set of proposals from Beijing, which included not only a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, but also a Free Trade Agreement and an “early harvest” deal to partially settle the long-pending boundary dispute.

Beijing also offered to discuss with New Delhi ways to find common ground between the Belt and Road initiative of China and India’s Act East policy. New Delhi has so far been opposed to the Belt and Road initiative.

China put forward the fresh set of proposals to mend its ties with India, even as the complex relations between the two neighbours came under stress over the past few months.

Beijing not only stonewalled New Delhi’s bid to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group, but also blocked its move at the United Nations to impose international sanctions on terrorist Masood Azhar, who lives in Pakistan and masterminded several attacks in India, including one on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot, Punjab, in January 2016.

Lao Zhouhui, Beijing’s envoy to New Delhi, publicly articulated China’s latest set of proposals to add new momentum to its ties with India.

“We should negotiate the bilateral Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, Free Trade Agreement, early harvest related to border issues and so on,” said Lou, delivering a speech at the University of Mumbai on Tuesday. “We should also discuss how to synergise China’s Belt and Road initiative with India’s Act East Policy,” he added.

Sources in New Delhi said that India will cautiously study the set of proposals put forward by China, particularly the one for starting negotiation on the proposed Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. While New Delhi remained committed to improving ties with Beijing, its engagements with the communist country in the coming days would be guided by the “national interests of India”, sources told DH.

Hope the Proposal is sincere , India requires some level of peace at borders, so we can recognize our potential.

FTA ? Lol

Should be taken seriously. We cant be enemies forever.

As per the analysis, India is pro China compared to US, Europian countries and some other countries.

It's time they settle in all the disputed and carry on with the own work.

We should look at it seriously.

India is only bound to benefit from a partnership (note:not friendship, too much has happened to jump to buddy buddy relations just yet)....trust always requires a small step and a great leap of faith....can Indian policy makers extricate themselves from decades of mutual suspicio fostered by mao-nehurivian discord? Time will only tell...

The_Sidewinder said:

Should be taken seriously. We cant be enemies forever.

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Agreed but how come i have hardly ever seen Indians displaying such approach when it comes to Pakistan? Just a question to all those here who are advocating to mend ties with China.

trade promotes interdependence, which reduces the incentive of war. protectionism and isolation reduce reluctance of waging wars. So, I am all for the free trade.

IceCold said:

Agreed but how come i have hardly ever seen Indians displaying such approach when it comes to Pakistan? Just a question to all those here who are advocating to mend ties with China.

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Valid question....The difference between China and Pakistan is that Pakistan is actively supporting and encouraging secession of some parts of India where as China is not...So for us, regular animosity between 2 neighours is quite expected. So we do not really have a strong dislike with China....This is the same reason, even if BD is a Muslim country, we do not have any strong dislike for BD too. Rather in PDF Itself, the amount of hatred by few BD people spread against us, still then we like BD for its progressive stance. The reason Pakistan always falls out is due to association of Pakistan with issues like Kashmir, Khalistan, Mumbai attack and many more...And again, same thing might be happening from your side too. India is associated with breaking up of Pakistan into 2 countries...So your perception for India is quite expected.

nang2 said:

trade promotes interdependence, which reduces the incentive of war. protectionism and isolation reduce reluctance of waging wars. So, I am all for the free trade.

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With nearly 100 billion of trade, i do not see any reason India will go for any war with China unless China sees any reason to start for it.

Kaniska said:

Valid question....The difference between China and Pakistan is that Pakistan is actively supporting and encouraging secession of some parts of India where as China is not...So for us, regular animosity between 2 neighours is quite expected. So we do not really have a strong dislike with China....This is the same reason, even if BD is a Muslim country, we do not have any strong dislike for BD too. Rather in PDF Itself, the amount of hatred by few BD people spread against us, still then we like BD for its progressive stance. The reason Pakistan always falls out is due to association of Pakistan with issues like Kashmir, Khalistan, Mumbai attack and many more...And again, same thing might be happening from your side too. India is associated with breaking up of Pakistan into 2 countries...So your perception for India is quite expected.

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I agree with most of what you said but my question was related to this line "We can't be enemies forever" If Indians can exhibit such way of thinking for China (by the way they too have territorial dispute with you as does Pakistan) so why not Pakistan? This does not mean that disputes or ill feelings towards each other will vanish over night but Pakistan in terms of language, movies and culture is pretty similar than anybody else. At the very least we dont need interpretors to talk to each other

IceCold said:

I agree with most of what you said but my question was related to this line "We can't be enemies forever" If Indians can exhibit such way of thinking for China (by the way they too have territorial dispute with you as does Pakistan) so why not Pakistan? This does not mean that disputes or ill feelings towards each other will vanish over night but Pakistan in terms of language, movies and culture is pretty similar than anybody else. At the very least we dont need interpretors to talk to each other

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Spot on...I am with opinion that India and Pakistan may not be the best buddies...but at least we should not be in each others throat. In general, outside India and Pakistan, both citizen are always best friends in all foreigh countries...Remember, we are best buddies in US,Europe and i am sure in Gulf too...

Sloth 22 said:

FTA ? Lol

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Yea.FTA with China would be economic suicide

I am for friendship treaty, but not for FTA.

Ryuzaki said:

Yea.FTA with China would be economic suicide

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Chinese will dump their products for cheap and Indian Industry will suffer