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	Sino-indian Relations (video) I. Bilateral Political Relations Historical records show that the Sino-Indian relations can be traced back to 2 Centuries B. C. Two famous Chinese Buddhist monk Fahien and Xuen Tsang went to India to learn the Buddhist scriptures, and the Indian monk Budhi-Dharma came to China to do missionary work and established the Chan sect. During the War of Resistance against Japan, the Indian National Congress Party sent a medical team to China, and Dr. Kotnis devoted his life to the liberation cause of the Chinese people. In the early 1950s, China and India had close exchanges and contacts. The two countries established diplomatic relations on 1 April 1950, and India was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with China among the non-socialist countries. In 1954, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Indian Prime Minister Nehru exchanged visits. The two leaders jointly initiated the famous Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Premier Zhou paid another visit to India in 1956. In 1959, India supported and took in the Tibetan rebels and then created bloodshed in the border areas between the two countries. In 1960, Premier Zhou went to New Delhi to meet with Prime Minister Nehru to discuss the boundary questions. In 1962, India launched an all-out armed offensive war against China along the Sino-Indian border, China was forced to hit back in self-defense. This led to a cooling period in bilateral relations. In 1976, China and India resumed accrediting ambassadors to each other. In 1979, Indian Minister of Foreign affairs, Vajpayee, paid a visit to China, and Chinese Vice Premier and Foreign Minister, Huang Hua, visited India in 1981. In 1984, the two sides signed a trade agreement. The end of 1988 saw the visit of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China, which brought the relations of the two countries into a new stage of development. The two sides agreed that prior to the solution of the boundary questions, the two countries would maintain peace and tranquillity in the areas along the line of actual control, and make efforts to improve and develop bilateral relations. The two countries decided to establish joint working groups on boundary questions, economics & trade and science & technology. The two sides also signed the agreements of cooperation on science and technology and civil aviation. During Premier Li Peng's visit to India in December 1991, the two countries signed the consular treaty, agreement on resuming establishment of consulate-general, MOUs on resuming border trade and on cooperation in science and technology for the peaceful use of outer space. This visit, having promoted an all-round improvement and development of the Sino-Indian relations, was followed by the successive high-level visits by Indian President, Speaker of Lok Sabha (House of the People) and Minister of Defense and the visits by Chinese leaders to India, such as the one by Liao Hansheng, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. The Chinese Consulate General in Mumbai (Bombay) and the Indian Consulate General in Shanghai were reopened. The Indian side also abrogated the discriminative and restricted laws and regulations against the Chinese nationals in India. In September 1993, Prime Minister Rao visited China. The two countries signed the agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the line of actual control in the China-India border areas, the agreements of cooperation in environment, in Radio and Television and the protocol on opening more border trade points, which have added new contexts to the friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries. In the same year, Li Ruihuan, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) visited India. In 1994, Indian Vice President Narayanan paid a visit to China, and Mr. Qian Qichen, Chinese Vice Premier and Foreign Minister, and Chi Haotian, State Councilor and Minister of National Defense, visited India respectively. The two countries signed the agreements on avoiding double taxation, the agreements of cooperation on health and medical science, MOUs on simplifying the procedure for visa application and on banking cooperation between the two countries. In 1995, Qiao Shi, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, visited India, and had extensive contacts with Indian leaders from various circles. This visit has further the bilateral relations. The same year also saw another visit by Qian Zhengying, Vice Chairwoman of the National Committee of CPPCC. At the end of November 1996, President Jiang Zemin paid a state visit to India, which was the 1st by a Chinese Head of State since the establishment of Sino-Indian diplomatic relations. During the visit, leaders of the two countries had fruitful talks and decided to establish a constructive partnership of cooperation oriented towards the 21st century. They also reached broad consensus on maintaining high-level contacts between the two sides, promoting the economic & trade cooperation of the two countries and strengthening mutual support in the field of international issues. In his visit at the end of 1997, Wei Jianxing, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, met with Indian leaders of government and various parties to maintain the momentum of high-level dialogues between the two countries. In May 1998, India carried out nuclear tests and made unwarranted accusations against China under the pretext of the "China threat", resulting in serious setback in Sino-Indian relations. China waged a tit-for-tat struggle. Since then, the Indian government restrained their anti-China utterances and somewhat and tried to contact China through various channels to repair the bilateral relations. During the 5th ARF Ministerial meeting, J. Singh, Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Committee, initiated to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan. In February 1999, officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries affirmed that China and India would not constitute threats to each other during the 1st round of the meeting. In April, the 11th round of meetings of the joint working group on the Sino-Indian boundary questions was held in Beijing. Jaswant Singh, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited China in the middle of June. During the talks, the two sides affirmed that the premise of developing the Sino-Indian relations should be that both sides treat the other side not as a threat, and the basis should be the Five Principle of Peaceful Coexistence jointly initiated by the two countries. The two sides would make concerted efforts to move the bilateral relations towards the direction of continuous restoration and improvement. From March 6 to 7, 2000, Chinese and Indian Foreign Ministry officials held the first round of security talks in Beijing, during which the two sides exchanged views on regional and international security situations and other issues of common concern. At the invitation of president Jiang Zemin, Indian President Kocheril Narayana paid a state visit to China from May 28-June 2, 2000. Both sides exchanged views on bilateral relations and regional as well as international issues of common concern and reached many consensus on stepping up Sino-Indian friendly, cooperation, strengthening economic and Trade cooperation and exchange of visits by personnel of each side and accelerating the process of verification of the actual line of control along the boundary. At the invitation of Jaswant Singh, Foreign Minister of India, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan paid a. visit to India. The two sides exchanged views on specifically promoting and implementing the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries during the Indian President's visit to China in May. At the invitation of the Speaker of the Indian Lok Sabha Barayoji and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Khant, Li Peng, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the rational People's Congress paid an official goodwill visit to India, from January 9-17, 2001. During the visit, Chairman Li Peng made broad contacts with the Indian leaders and personalities of various circles and exchanged views with them on how to enhance Sino-Indian friendship and cooperation and reached many consensus. This visit realized the goal of increasing understanding, promoting friendship and strengthening cooperation, promoted the exchanges and cooperation between China and India and between the Chinese National People’s Congress and the Indian Parliament and further pushed Sino-Indian friendly relations of good-neighborliness to move forward in a sustained, healthy and steady manner in the new century. From July 1 to 7, 2001, at the invitation of Chairman Li Peng, Najma Heptulla, Chairman of Inter Parliamentary Union and Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha, led a goodwill delegation consisting of PMs and persons from business circles on a visit to China. From November 17 to 18, 2001, China-India Eminent Persons' Group held its first meeting in New Delhi, for which the Prime Ministers of the two countries sent their congratulatory letters respectively. The meeting was co-chaired by Liu Shuqing (former Foreign Minister), Chairman from the Chinese side, and Mr.R. L. Bhatia (former State Minister for External affairs), Chairman from Indian side. At the meeting, members of the two sides had an in-depth exchange of views and came up with some new ideas and suggestions on how to intensify cooperation in various areas. From January 12 to 18, 2002, at the invitation of the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Premier Zhu Rongji paid an official visit to India. During the visit, Premier Zhu held talks with Vajpaee, and came into extensive contact with other Indian leaders and personalities from various circles. The two sides reaffirmed that China and India posed no thread to each other and reached wide-ranging consensus on how to further advance the cooperation in economic, trade and other fields. The two sides also signed six documents for cooperation in the fields of tourism, science & technology, water conservancy and outer space etc., thus further promoted the all round development of Sino-Indian relations. Besides New Delhi, Premier Zhu also visited Agra, Bombay and Bangalore. From March 29 to April 2, 2002, at the invitation of Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, Jaswant Singh, Minister for External Affairs of India, came to China on a visit by the maiden flight between China and India. The two Ministers reached consensus on a number of measures relating to follow-up works of Premier Zhu's visit and in-depth development of bilateral cooperation in various areas. II. Economical & Trade Relations and Economic and Technological Cooperation In recent years, the exchanges of trade, science and technology between China and India have been constantly strengthened with the trade volume registered $1.82 billion in 1997 and $1.92 billion in 1998, 1.987 billion US dollars in 1999 and US$29.1 billion in 2000, with a growing momentum. The main items China exports to India include petroleum, chemical and industrial products and mechanical and electrical products, and Chinese imports from India are iron ores and chromium mineral. In 1992, the two sides formally resumed boundary trade in Burong of Tibet and Gunji of Indian Uttar Pradesh. Another two trade points were opened in 1994 in Jiuba of Tibet and Namgya of Indian Himachal Pradesh. Generally speaking, the trade volume between the two countries is very small, and the cooperation on science and technology at present is still in the burgeoning stages, which are not compatible to the statuses of China and India as two big powers. Continuous efforts are needed to tap potentialities to expand the cooperation between the two countries both in depth and in width. In recent years, China and India has made extensive contact and exploration with a view to developing bilateral economic cooperation of mutual benefit. Up to the end of 2001, contracts for labor services made by the Chinese side in India added up to 145. The contract volume is US$482 million with a turnover totaling US$166 million. In 2001, the trade volume between China and India amounted to US$3.59 billion. III. The Sino-Indian Boundary Question The border between China and India is about 2,000 kilometers, which is divided into the eastern, middle and western sectors. The disputed areas are about 125,000 square kilometers, about 90,000 square kilometers in the eastern sector, about 2,000 square kilometers in the middle sector and about 33,000 square kilometers the western sector. At present, India controls the whole eastern and middle sectors. The Sino-Indian boundary question was left over from history. In 1914, Britain concocted the illegal McMahon Line, which has never been recognized by the successive Chinese governments. After its independence in 1947, India not only inherited Britain's occupation of parts of Chinese territories, but also further invaded and occupied large tracts of Chinese territories, and expanded to the so called McMahon Line in 1953. In 1954, India unilaterally changed the "undelimited borderline" as the "delimited line" in the map based on its incursion and occupation and unreasonable propositions. In 1959, India formally laid claims over the Aksai Chin areas located in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China in line with its unilaterally altered boundary map. In April 1960, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai went to New Delhi to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Nehru, but did not reach agreements were due to India's insistence on its unreasonable stand. The ensuing meetings between the officials of the two countries also produced no results. In October 1962, India launched massive armed attacks against China in the border areas, seeking to grab Chinese territories by force. China had no option but to fight back. In self-defence. Since then, tranquility was basically maintained in the border areas between the two countries have kept quiet for quite a long period. In February 1987, India established the so-called Arunachal Pradesh in its illegally occupied Chinese territories south of the McMahon Line. The Chinese side made solemn statements on many occasions that China would never recognize the illegal McMahon Line and the so-called Arunachal Pradesh, and demanded that India withdraw all of its military personnel who have crossed the border line and set up guard posts in Chinese territories. In December 1988, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China. The two sides agreed that while seeking for the mutually acceptable solution to the boundary questions, the two countries should develop their relations in other fields and make efforts to create the atmosphere and conditions conducive to settle the boundary questions. The two sides agreed to establish a Joint Working Group (JWG) on the boundary questions at the Vice-Foreign Ministerial level. Up to now, this Vice-Ministerial JWG has held 11 rounds of talks on the boundary questions. The two sides have reached a consensus that the boundary questions should not become obstacles to the development of bilateral relations in other fields between the two countries and should be settled through peaceful negotiation. In 1993, the two governments signed the agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the line of actual control in the Sino-Indian border areas, and established an expert group to discuss the ways to implement the agreement. And some positive progress has already been achieved. The two sides have removed the guard posts in close which are too close to each other along the borderline in Wangdong area, making the situation in the border areas more stable. During President Jiang Zemin's visit to India at the end of 1996, the Governments of China and India signed the agreement on building confidence measures in the military field along the line of actual control in the Sino-Indian border areas, which is an important measure for the building of mutual confidence between the two countries. The signing and implementation of the Agreement are conducive to the further maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the line of actual control in the Sino-Indian border areas and to the creation of a sound atmosphere for the ultimate settlement of the boundary questions. III. Important Documents Trade Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of India. (signed in August 1984) Agreement on Cultural Cooperation between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of India. (signed in May 1988) Sino-Indian Joint Press Communique. (Published on 23 December 1988, Beijing) Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of India on Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control in the Sino-Indian Border Areas. (signed in September 1993) Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of India on Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in the Sino-Indian Border Areas. (signed in November 1996) Agreement on Tourism Cooperation Between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of India. (signed in January 14, 2002) Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China - Back -

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