Hope to turn the corner with India: Chinese envoy

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 25 

Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong on Tuesday said his country’s basic foreign policy towards India remains unchanged.

“We hope to put the boundary question at an appropriate place in bilateral relations and push bilateral relations back on track at an early date,” said the envoy during an attempt at soft power diplomacy by addressing Indian scholars, teachers and students of Chinese language at a webinar.

The envoy suggested three reasons for his assertion. Besides the common need for tranquillity to allow both countries to develop and a history of high level bilateral engagements, Sun drew solace from the fact that both sides were currently working to properly handle an “unfortunate incident” that happened in the border areas.

The Chinese Ambassador wanted both sides to take a long-term perspective instead of being focused on “a brief moment from the perspective of history” which was his term for the Galwan Valley clash that claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers.

Sun was part of the Chinese team that had accompanied then Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee 17 years ago to the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, Henan Province. The 2,000-year-old temple was the first official temple after Buddhism spread eastward from India to China. In 2010, he accompanied then President Pratibha Patil to the temple for its inauguration after being renovated in Indian style.