India-China 75 Years Of Diplomatic Ties: Leaders Exchange Messages, Call For Renewed Cooperation | Representative Image
India and China celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries on April 1, 1950, with a warmth that bodes well for relations between the two Asian superpowers.
The occasion was marked by the exchange of messages between President Draupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang in Beijing. We would do well to recall at this point the spirit in which Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, advocated strong ties between the two nations, both of which had at that time fully overthrown the yoke of foreign domination.
Nehru’s advocacy of strong ties with the new people’s republic was based on a nascent vision of non-alignment and Asian solidarity, embedded in the bedrock of Panchsheel, or the five principles of peaceful coexistence that should guide international relations.
Nehru anticipated the solidarities of what has come to be known as the Global South and realised that as the two potentially giant powers of Asia, cooperation between the two was an essential prerequisite to movement forward for the newly decolonising nations of Asia and Africa and the uplift of their teeming millions of poverty-ridden people. Since then, of course, the relations between the two powers have seen many ups and downs, including two wars and border hostilities.
But now is a good and, especially, apposite time for New Delhi and Beijing to embark upon a process of engagement and mending fences. This was pointed out by Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri, while a Chinese statement said that this was an opportunity to promote ‘strategic trust … and advance China-India relations on the track of sound and stable development’.
There are several challenges the international order faces in meeting, which India and China can jointly contribute to in critical ways. Indeed, it is arguable that these problems cannot be meaningfully solved without the cooperative contribution of these two nations.
One of these problems is climate change in particular and the global environment in general. There is no doubt that climate change, which threatens the future of our planet and human civilisation, is the most critical challenge facing humanity.
As two of the fastest growing economies in the world and two of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, India and China must, together, contribute massively to hammering out internationally just solutions. At this point in time, particularly, the rules-based international order is threatened not just in the sphere of diplomacy but also in economic relations.
In these arenas, too, India and China must join hands to work out solutions that work for all. But, fundamentally, it is important that the two countries begin repairing their relationship with the exchange of these messages.
