China has suggested a maritime dialogue with India covering two 'silk roads' for cooperation among South Asian nations to improve connectivity, trade and to keep the sea lanes safe.
The idea inviting India to join the Martime Silk Road was mooted at the talks between the special representatives of the two countries Shiv Shankar Menon and Yang Jeichi in Delhi earlier this week.
China's Special Representative Yang Jiechi has conveyed Beijing's wish in this regard to his Indian counterpart Shivshankar Menon, a Chinese official told PTI here.
India's response was the positive, the official added.
Sources in Delhi said "we have just decided. When we will sit across the table we will discuss the maritime policy."
Sri Lanka has already conveyed its willingness to back the initiative to build MSR during the just concluded visit of its Foreign Minister G L Peiris here.
Elaborating on the MSR, she said it was still an idea in making.
"This initiative is just an idea for cooperation. It is an open ended platform. The purpose is to integrate all kinds of ongoing cooperation especially cooperation on connectivity in the spirit of (ancient) silk road so that they can connect with each other and promote each other and accelerate regional countries' common development," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told media in Beijing yesterday.
"In this end China adopts an open attitude. We also hope to see good suggestions from other countries so as to substantiate this idea," she said.
The MSR was mooted last year with countries of Southeast Asia by President Xi Jinping during his visit to Indonesia and Malaysia where he stated that the MSR would help turn the "Golden Decade" between China and Southeast Asian Countries into "Diamond Decade".
Simultaneously, China also worked to revive the ancient Silk Route which existed 2,000 years to with a host of Central Asian states.
Besides MSR, China has proposed the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) corridor to improve trade and businesses among all the four countries.
