India ready to work closely with China

The new Indian government is keen to work closely with the Chinese leadership to deal with any outstanding issue.

This was conveyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to China Premier Li Keqiang, when the latter called up the former.

The congratulatory telephone call from Li is Modi’s first telephonic conversation with a foreign head of a government since taking over as India’s new prime minister.

US President Barak Obama called up Modi on the day of his party’s landslide victory in the Lok Sabha polls and invited him to visit Washington at a mutually convenient time. Russian President Vladimir Putin and many other world leaders had a telephonic conversation with Modi, but all of them happened before he was sworn in as the prime minister.

Modi also welcomed greater economic engagement between the two nations. The bilateral trade between the two nations was about 80 billion in the last fiscal and the two countries have set up a target to cross the $ 100 billion mark by 2015. The two leaders agreed to maintain frequent high-level exchanges.

As a chief minister of Gujarat Modi visited China seeking investment for the trade. After he became the prime minister, the Chinese media recalled stories from that visit in which Modi went with meticulous preparation.

“He (Modi) presented a business card with one side in Chinese and in red, the colour that symbolises wealth and good fortune in China. With Modi taking the oath of office as India’s new prime minister such attention to China is expected to be repeated,” said State-run “China Daily”.

Modi told the Chinese leader said that Sino-Indian bilateral relations should proceed from “strategic perspective” to long term benefits to people. The conversation between the two top Asian leaders comes after Modi, in an unprecedented diplomatic move, invited the heads of Saarc countries including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony.

India and China share more than 4,000 km-long disputed border, where a flash point is often seen between the two armies.