China positive on Putin’s India visit; calls for stronger trilateral cooperation

Besides terming New Delhi and Beijing as close friends of Moscow, Putin also expressed confidence that the leaderships of India and China are committed to finding solutions to their issues, and Russia has no right to interfere in their bilateral affairs.

Beijing: China on Monday reacted positively to Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India, framing the three countries as an important part of the Global South and saying that sound trilateral ties are conducive to regional and global peace and stability, besides their own national interests.

"China, Russia and India are emerging economies and important members of the Global South," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a media briefing, reacting for the first time to Putin's high-profile visit to New Delhi last week and his interactions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Guo said that the "three countries maintaining sound relations is not only in line with their own interests but also conducive to regional and global peace, security, stability and prosperity".

Putin's visit was watched closely, considering Beijing's close and strong ties with Moscow.

Responding to a question about Putin's comments about New Delhi and Beijing ahead of his visit, Guo said that "China stands ready to work with Russia and India to continue advancing the bilateral relations".

In an interview ahead of his visit, Putin had said, "India and China are our closest friends - we treasure that relationship deeply." On India-China relations - currently on a path of normalisation after the Eastern Ladakh confrontation, which resulted in a freeze in ties from 2020 until last year -- Guo said China wants to promote sustained and strong ties with New Delhi with a long-term perspective.

"On China-India ties, China stands ready to work with India to view and handle the bilateral relationship from a strategic height and long-term perspective, promote the sustained, sound and steady development of China-India ties, so as to better benefit the two countries and two peoples and make due contributions to peace and prosperity in Asia and beyond," he said.

Besides terming New Delhi and Beijing as close friends of Moscow, Putin, in the interview with an Indian news channel, also expressed confidence that the leaderships of India and China are committed to finding solutions to their issues, and Russia has no right to interfere in their bilateral affairs.

Chinese official media highlighted Putin's comments on India-China relations.

The state-run Xinhua news agency carried his remarks refuting US accusations over India's purchases of Russian oil.

For its part, China tops the list of countries purchasing Russian oil and gas, and rejected US calls to halt the imports to penalise Moscow for continuing its war on Ukraine.

Putin visited India from December 4-5. This was his first visit to India since 2021.

During his visit, a host of agreements were signed to boost trade and economic ties between the two countries. Both sides also worked out an Economic Cooperation Programme to increase trade volume to $100 billion by 2030.