Ahead of the official announcement of second India-China informal summit that will take place in Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu over the weekend, China on Tuesday said the ties between the twi countries have seen "sound momentum".
China has also suggested a dialogue as a "way forward" for India and Pakistan on Kashmir, indicating that it is a bilateral dispute.
"China and India are important neighbours to each other. Both are large developing countries as well as major emerging markets. Since the Wuhan Informal Summit last year, China-India relations have shown sound momentum of development," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang said.
"The two sides have steadily advanced cooperation in various fields and properly manage differences and sensitive issues," he added.
Asked when the summit will be announced, Geng said, "Both sides are also in communication on the next stage of bilateral high-level exchanges. The two sides should jointly create a favourable atmosphere and environment for high-level exchanges. Any new information will be released in due course."
Both sides are expected to formally announce the dates of the second India-China informal summit simultaneously on Wednesday. The first India-China informal summit took place in Wuhan in April, 2018.
Interestingly on Kashmir, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said both India and Pakistan must "strengthen dialogue", this even as Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is in China and held talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
India has always maintained that New Delhi and Islamabad have to bilaterally resolve all matter which is in accordance with Shimla and Lahore agreements.
China, along with Pakistan has been very vocal at the international stage on Kashmir since New Delhi revoked special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
The announcement of the second informal summit will come while Pak PM is in China.
Meanwhile, Chinese envoy to India Sun Weidong in a series of tweets highlighted how China's imports from India have increased by 5%.
The trade deficit has been a major issue for India and New Delhi has many times asked the country to open its market for Indian goods, especially pharma sector. Other than trade, both sides will be discussing all issues with each other.
During last year's Wuhan informal summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinse President Xi Jinping gave strategic guidance to forces of both the countries so that there would not be a repetition of Doklam crisis.
Other key outcomes of the Wuhan summit was the establishment of the India-China High-Level Mechanism on Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges (HLM). The second meet of the mechanism happened earlier this year during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's China visit. Both sides also decided to jointly train Afghan diplomats, the first batch was trained last year, the next one is expected to begin very soon this year.
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