On January 16, 2012, China's special representative for China-India border issues and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, before leaving for India to attend the 15th meeting of special representatives for China-India border issues, published a signed article on The Hindu elaborating China-India relations and China's peaceful development concept.
In the article, Dai pointed out that in the mid 1950s, China and India, in response to the call of the time, jointly initiated the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Today, these five principles are still shining with strong vitality. As the world is undergoing drastic and profound changes, China and India, both ancient civilizations and major developing countries whose combined population accounts for nearly 40% of the world's total, once again have responded to the call of our time, seized the historic opportunity of economic globalization and achieved fast development. They are now the two largest emerging countries in the world and play increasingly important roles in regional and international affairs.
He noted that since the beginning of the new century the China-India strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity has continued to grow rapidly and the bilateral friendly cooperation has yielded fruitful results. The two countries speak with one voice and enjoy increasingly closer coordination and collaboration in multilateral mechanisms and in tackling global challenges. China is full of sentiment of friendship toward India. While working hard to develop itself, China is fully committed to developing long-term friendship and cooperation with India. It is China's genuine hope that India will enjoy prosperity and its people happiness. There does not exist such a thing as China's attempt to "attack India" or "suppress India's development".
He stressed that China will remain committed to the path of peaceful development. China's conviction to peaceful development is rooted in the fine Chinese cultural tradition. It came into being in the course of reform and opening-up and is firmly supported by China's state policy and strategy. Peaceful development is a rational and strategic choice made in line with the trend of our time and China's basic conditions. Looking ahead, China-India relations enjoy huge potential and massive cooperation space and face a golden period of development. The world has enough space for China and India to achieve common development, as there are so many areas for the two countries to work together. As neighbors and two big countries of a combined population of 2.5 billion, China and India should join hands, seize the historic opportunity and work together to further advance friendship and cooperation and bring benefits to our two countries, two peoples and the whole mankind.
