With war drums on the LoC not being so distant, it is in the fitness of things that India should give serious thought to improving ties with China. Officials from India and China held negotiations in Beijing with the goal of resuming joint military exercises this year signalling increased trust levels between the two countries. The exercises were stopped in 2009 over the issue of China giving stapled visas to residents of Jammu & Kashmir. The two sides reviewed measures to ensure peace and tranquility on the Line of Actual Control. It is a strategic understanding, an official statement, made by India’s defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma and General Xu Qiliang, Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission. Agreement has been reached on bilateral military exchanges for 2013. The Chinese General said that the two countries had the ability to handle their relationship. The Indian defence secretary said that conditionalities should outweigh differences.
Meanwhile, China’s new leader XI Jingpiang has assured India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his country will pay great importance to developing bilateral cooperation between the two countries which is of mutual benefit. He has spoken of stable relations between Delhi and Beijing in the past two years. These exchanges at the top level should not be treated as mere gestures. China’s equidistance from India and Pakistan is valuable in the event of a flare-up on the India-Pakistan border in the past, minor irritants had soured relations between India and China and the latter had extended moral and military support to Pakistan in a covert or even overt manner. It is in the interest of India to forget the bitterness caused by the Chinese invasion of 1962 to neutralize one border.
