Amid strained ties with the United States and an escalating tariff war between the world’s two largest economies, China has been extending an olive branch to India in recent weeks, calling for stronger economic cooperation and deeper trade engagement. Beijing appears keen to reset ties with New Delhi, positioning India as a potential strategic partner in navigating the shifting global trade landscape.
Meanwhile, Yu Jing, spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India, shared a video of India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar discussing India-China relations at the recently concluded News18 Rising Bharat Summit. “Hard-won progress, worth cherishing,” she captioned the video post.
Hard-won progress, worth cherishing. Attributed to #RisingBharatSummit2025 pic.twitter.com/uU2uTdHabI Yu Jing (@ChinaSpox_India) April 10, 2025
Yu Jing had earlier said China and India, the two biggest developing countries, “should stand together to overcome the difficulties” created by the reciprocal tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration in the US.
She further said that China and India, which have a trade relationship based on complementarity and mutual benefit, are both facing the “US abuse of tariffs, which deprives countries, especially Global South countries, of their right to development”.
In the video, Jaishankar, in conversation with CNN-News18 Managing Editor Zakka Jacob, said that the relationship with China is currently better and disengagement, particularly the Demchok, was important.
“We are now addressing, to some extent, issues on the border because there’s been a force buildup over a period of years. But there were many other things which also happened during this period. You know, some of it was a collateral damage of the situation. Some of it was actually a carryover from the COVID era. For example, our flights, direct flights stopped during COVID. They were not resumed. The Kailash Mansarovar Yatra stopped during COVID. It did not again resume,” he said.
Jaishankar further said that there is still work to be done. “So, I think there is work to be done. We are at it. We are trying to see whether a lot of this post-COVID and parallel to the border tension, the combination of these issues, how much we can progress on this. We are looking at it because at the end of the day, we have always maintained that the situation which we saw between 2020 and 2024 was not in the interest of either country. It was not in the interest of our relationship. And I think there is a recognition of that now,” the minister remarked in the video shared by Jing.
In October last year, India and China signed a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok, the last two friction points in eastern Ladakh. Later, PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks on the sidelines of BRICS Summit in Kazan and took a number of decisions to improve the ties. Last month, India and China explored ways to improve ties and agreed to initiate efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges, including arrangements for resumption of direct flights and resume Kailash Manasarovar Yatra this year.