India and China should show "maturity" in managing their differences, including the vexed boundary dispute, and avoid viewing each other as competitors, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said today, arguing that strong Sino-India ties would have global consequences.
Presenting an upbeat picture of Sino-Indian ties, which saw a bitter war of words over Arunachal Pradesh last year, Krishna said the bilateral issues are "under total control" and the two countries have evolved a mechanism to find a solution to issues like boundary demarcation.
Advocating a patient approach to resolve the longstanding boundary dispute, Krishna said "the true test of our maturity" lies in the way they manage their problems.
"We have to accept that there will be outstanding issues between the two countries even as our relationship forges ahead. This is in the very nature of global politics and we should not get discouraged as a result," he said in his address at a prominent think-tank here.
He said as rising powers, India and China are often projected to have a "competitive relationship" but it depends on the two neighbours to craft out their own course. "In the final analysis, we all are what we want to be. It is upto us to disprove such scenarios, not through platitudes and wishful thinking, but by concrete examples of cooperation," he said.
On his maiden visit to China, Krishna said the effective cooperation forged by the two countries on climate negotiations in Copenhagen should be extended to other global issues, including fighting terrorism.
"A strong and stable relationship between India and China has consequences for the entire world. Because we are different, our divergences are often exaggerated. If truth be told, there are vested interests at work too."
"India and China must not just cooperate; they must be seen to be doing so by the rest of the world," he said pointing out that their cooperation at Copenhagen had decisively sent out a message to the world that "here are two developing economies who are coming together for the purpose of making the world a better place".
"India and China have only begun to impact seriously on the world. Just as we advanced de-colonisation and independence movements in the fifties, today we are striving to rewrite the rules of the world a little more in our favour," he said.
In his speech, Krishna said the bilateral cooperation forged by the two countries specially on climate change negotiations should be extended to the issue "concerning the instability in our neighbourhood" and to face the challenges in the "immediate periphery" of the two countries.
