India and China should handle relations “cautiously, calmly and rationally” while avoiding “suspicion and confrontration”, Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong said on Thursday.
In a series of tweets, which was part of a webinar on India-China relations, the ambassador also stressed on the need for the neighbouring countries to straighten their views on three key issues to move “India-China relations forward”.
First, he said, “China is not a strategic threat to India” while stressing that Beijing is committed to peaceful development. “Safeguarding world peace and promoting common development has always been fundamental goal of China’s diplomacy. Since PRC founding 70 years ago, we have always pursued good-neighborly friendship, sought development with our neighbors and worked to make pie of cooperation bigger,” he added.
The Chiense ambassador said that “it is short-sighted and harmful to deny long history of peaceful co-existence between the two countires” and protray China as “opponent and strategic threat due to temporary differences and difficulties”.
“China and India are important neighbours to each other, and maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border area is in the common interests of both sides,” he said.
